Freedom At Stake

With the tragedy of Monday April 16 lingering freshly in our minds we must remember September 11, 2001. You may wonder why, but it is necessary for maintaining our freedom as a nation.

On that eventful, catastrophic day, nearly 3000 people died (2973 with 24 still missing and unaccounted for). There is one event I think of which reminds us what is necessary at times of facing things and people which are evil.

Three commercial airliners had disastrously struck their evil designers intended targets. The North and South buildings of the World Trade Center; and the Pentagon. One other airliner; United Airlines flight 93 was over Philadelphia, and here is an except from Wikipedia concerning that mornings flight -

"On United Airlines Flight 93, black box recordings revealed that crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning. According to the transcript of Flight 93's recorder, one of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers. Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11 a.m. local time (14:03:11 UTC). Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed mentioned in a 2002 interview with an Al Jazeera journalist that Flight 93's target was the United States Capitol,[18] which was given the code name "the Faculty of Law."[19]"

The reason I mention this is because of the heroism which was shown on that day. Where was that on Monday morning at Virginia Tech? Thirty two people died. There was heroism in the Professor of one class who willingly gave his life to protect his students, and allowed them to escape from the madness of Cho Sueng-Hui.

Understand, I am not blaming students at the College. They did what students are pretty much trained and taught to do in such incidents. They protected themselves. We have bullies in our world, and the students and people who are bullied by them are taught and told to go and tell an authority - a teacher, a principal, or a policeman. What if the people on United Airlines Flight 93 had done that on that disastrous day? The events would have been more catastrophic, and many more lives would have been lost.

It was people defending themselves against tyrants, and bullies which bought the freedom of our nation. We need to get back to the idea of defending ourselves, and others. It is right to do so.

I believe that if there would have been a couple of young men and women who would have determined to take Cho Sueng-Hui down there would have been less people murdered. If there is blame to be placed it should be at the feet of those who have taught us to "Protect ourselves" rather than fight the bullies, and evil.

Someone, I believe it was a man named Edmund Burke said, "All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing", and I believe him to be correct. Our freedom is at stake, if we just continue to teach our children, students, and others to just get under your desks. That is good advice during a tornado, but not against evil men and women.