Gotta follow the two day rule....its money baby

I meant to post something on 9/11 about that day and what it means to me, but life happens....better late than never.

While the purpose of The Looking Spoon is to be satirical and humorous I just want to set that aside for a moment....On September 11, 2001 I finally understood what it really means to be willing to lay down ones life for this country. I always knew this country was the greatest in existence, and that, as John McCain and others like Ronald Reagan have put it, there is an exceptionalism to America others simply cannot boast....

I know "studies show" that when social scientists from Scandinavia formulate their rankings we are never anywhere near the top....their findings are quite conclusive and substantiated by the fact America has an immigration glut (legal and illegal) and other countries don't.

I knew America was a country worth fighting and dying for, but on 9/11....for the first time in my life.....I KNEW it.

I saw the safety of our lives, the opportunities we have, the freedoms...I saw all of it...and I saw how very fragile it all really is in this world...and I saw how easy it was to have it taken away by those who hate us.

While I've admittedly never enlisted in the military, they have something a certain unnamed wing of the American political spectrum wont give them.....my undying, unconditional, never-ending support and admiration for what they do.

I'm proud to know that my position isn't a courageous one, its common and shared with most of this country, thank God.

The people who I think are the most courageous are the ones who declare their support the troops but not the war, or they support the troops by bringing them home. It takes a LOT of courage to publicly declare your stupidity.

Many of them are in entertainment....I would love to tell those people "I support your career, but I wont see your movie, or buy your album." If everyone felt that way their careers would cease to exist, because they wouldn't be worth a damn.

Somehow this exclusive club of high school and college dropouts think the same isn't true with our troops. Its hard to believe since you would think a bunch of hedonistic me-firsters would have something of an idea about struggle and sacrifice for country. (shurgs shoulders)

To be sure, mistakes were made that have dragged the conflict out and probably got us off the right track, especially two years ago. Even as things are getting better the Democratic Party still wants out of the war by 2002 (when they voted "befogainst" it).

There is a bigger picture here...and I know its one that is highly debatable philosophically, about trying to bring a more western value system to the Middle East. We don't know if it will work, but we do know (those of us that live in reality) that doing nothing and returning to the mentality that we had before is just unacceptable.

Its hard to believe that people who describe themselves as progressive fail to be so forward thinking through the prism of the conflict we are in right now with people who are mentally stuck in the Crusades. Every day they fail to see the big picture, a picture that was developed on September 10, 2001, and its grand unveiling came the next day.

I will never forget, and I pray after seven years this country still hasn't as well.

***AUTHOR'S PS***

"Befogainst" is an obtuse reference to John Kerry's famous summation of his position on the Iraq war and how he voted for it before he was against it.

People responsible for celebrity couple nicknames are SO jealous right now...