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9/11 - What We Said About Terrorist Filth "If you can make it there, you'll make it anywhere, It's up to you, New York, New York!" This was a declaration of war - but a declaration by whom, and against what? 2,500 people were killed in the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in 1942. Today, in mainland USA, many many more have been killed in appalling scenes as America was left defenceless. Airline security was exposed. The Pentagon was breached. The glory of the New York skyline was rent asunder; the twin towers of the World Trade Centre - shining spires of capitalism and twin symbols for man's achievement - are no more. With their destruction, that skyline now stands like a mouthful of broken teeth, and many of capitalism's best and brightest - who moments before had been going about their daily business - have been destroyed, their lives snuffed out in those formerly gleaming spires. Manhattan and Washington were in chaos. The whole world was in shock. Almost the whole world - for this disaster was no accident. It was the result of careful and calculated cunning on the part of someone. But whoever committed this outrage, and whatever they claim to stand for, it is clear enough what they are against: As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said soon after the disaster, this was an attack against civilisation itself. The New York skyline represents one of man's highest achievements - the World Trade Center towers represented that skyline's financial district - the very engine of capitalism - those working in downtown New York are capitalism's best. Today, instead of buying, selling and investing, the world's best and brightest were burnt alive, crushed, or were jumping to their deaths. What caused this was an act of piracy by everything that slithers against everything that stands - or stood - erect; by the very lowest, against the very highest that civilisation has to offer. And, as in the days of piracy on the high seas, this modern savagery must be stamped out by a fierce uncompromising commitment to the protection and sanctity of innocent human lives. Civilisation has today been attacked by savages armed only with carpet knives, and it must learn how to defend itself against such an enemy. It has not yet armed itself with the weapons to do so - either philosophically, or militarily. Unfortunately, it must. The point is often made that the best defence against terrorism is a steely resolve, and an excellent intelligence service. In the last few decades both have been absent, but the lack of steely resolve is the hardest to remedy for such resolve will only come from an uncompromising commitment to the very values that uphold civilisation, and to an unswerving defence of those values - and commitment on the level required necessitates the philosophical weapons to understand and defend and those values. For what makes someone hijack a jumbo jet and then fly it suicidally into a 110 storey skyscraper above teeming city streets if not their commitment to horrific ideas? What makes them want to kill on this scale? And to kill themselves in the process? Only the power of ideas can fuel such evil - evil ideas. Evil ideas can only be fought with better ones, which means you must have better ideas with which to defend yourself. In the long term, only the philosophy of Objectivism can provide the necessary philosophical weapons. ... BILL GRAZIER: Although those bastards can kill our citizens, they'll never kill the human spirit, never extinguish joy or love or friendship ... as long as we maintain our strength and dignity, then these bastards will never defeat us. CHRIS LEWIS: The hatred I feel towards the pieces of sub-human excrement that are responsible for this crime against humanity knows no limits. If ever there has been cause to seek justice, what has happened in the US over the last few hours demands that every maggot that has had any involvement whatsoever in these acts of pure evil is exterminated from the face of the earth - along with the anti-life, death worshipping ideas that give rise to them. MATTHEW BALLIN: It's a damned good thing I'm a Sense Of Life Objectivist, or I would have just lost all my hope for humanity. I woke up this morning and dragged myself immediately to the computer, signed on, and checked my email. I saw the Freedom News Daily email titled "Terrorist attacks on World Trade Center, Pentagon." I thought it was some sort of tasteless parody. I opened it, and linked to the page on nando.net, a site I had never heard of. I saw the title come up, with a picture of an airplane on a collision course with one of the Twin Towers, and still thought it must be a joke - but I was starting to wonder. So I went to CNN.com - and there it was. It was real. I was PISSED. I have no other way to put it. I felt rage and disgust at the savages that could justify to themselves such an action. I was angry for the dead, I was angry for the living. I was angry for the innocence that Americans had lost, that feeling that everyone SHOULD be able to have, that "it can't happen here." It can - but it shouldn't, and in a world of rational men, it wouldn't. I was too shocked to think the issue all the way through. I thought of those glorious symbols and products of freedom, those towering statements of ability which had been shattered. I thought of the people who were crushed. I thought of the men and women who had to watch those towers motionlessly advancing toward their own eyes, seeing the city that they loved fly beneath them as they soared to their death. I thought of the bastards who caused it. Then, a headline hit my eyes. An editorial entitled "Time to Pray." WHAT THE FUCK?!? Isn't that just the problem here? Haven't they noticed that it is the very reliance on divinity, the hatred of this material world and those who are successful in it, which impels some to kill? Perhaps not. Perhaps I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they're just too stupid to notice that in an emergency, one acts to end the emergency - one doesn't just sit around prone, hands in front of bowed face, hoping somebody else will make it all ok. I'm home now, having just listened to Bush's mercifully short address to the nation. Unlike Clinton, who would have been there all night feeling our pain, he played the role of a statesman. His speech was full of symbolism which would have been trite if it was not so appropriate; he outlined his administration's intended policy (which was ruthlessly reasonable), and got off the stage. I could expect nothing more of a politician; I could ask nothing more of a man. BARBARA BRANDEN: I hope Bush will act immediately, and I suspect he will. It has been suggested that we take time before making a decision about what to do. We don't need time. We need only the sight of the bodies strewn around the streets of New York. The terrorists must learn that whatever they do to us, we will do worse to them. Only then will they discover that it is unsafe to attack us. There are times when righteous wrath is justified, and this is one of those times. We needn't be hysterical and flail out in all directions, but we must step on the terrorists -- and those who harbor them -- as we'd step on a poisonous bug. Bush said something very important during his talk: he said that we will go after the terrorists and also *those who harbor them. * This has never been said before; always, we have targeted only the terrorists themselves. This time, it not enough that we put a few terrorists in prison; we must go after the source and destroy it and thereby send a warning to terrorists all over the world. I am so filled with both grief and rage, that I don't know which is predominant. I go back and forth between one and the other, as I'm sure most of us do. I'll be going to New York next week -- assuming planes are flying -- and I shudder at the thought of seeing my beloved city so shattered. I'd like to add my thanks to those of you who have thanked our friends in other countries for their sympathy and good wishes. Somehow, it helps.
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