Twenty-five years after September 11, 2001

Imagine a world where the response to “they hate us because of our freedoms” had been a celebration of those freedoms, where the response to violence had been confident solidarity instead of fear. What if we had embraced our vulnerability and worked to lift everyone up and to welcome the stranger?

Instead we chose to respond to violence with violence — and to use the attack as pretext for unending war. We chose to respond in fear, to embrace nationalist codewords like “Homeland,” to build a sprawling and massive police and surveilance state. We’ve chosen concentration camps and arrests and deportations. There is a direct line from September 11, 2001, to Operation Metro Surge.

I think about a lot of things on September 11. Today I’m thinking at least a bit on this famous line from Benjamin Franklin:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.