It's worth remembering how much everything changed seven years ago. The country has gone from a presidential election where the Social Security lockbox and Al Gore's earth tones were major issues to another, this year's, where it seems the future of the nation is on the line. As Matt notes, who would have believed seven years ago that Osama bin Laden would still be at large? I wouldn't. Who would have believed six years ago that we'd still be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan?
It's important to remember those we lost on 9/11 and the servicemen who are fighting and dying in the wars those attacks, rightly in one case and falsely in the other, led to. It's not important simply as a maudlin gesture towards patriotism, but as a reminder of how important our politics has become, how vital it is to get the right people in office, pursuing the right policies, not just to prevent future attacks but to address the deeply dysfunctional world-order we confront every day. History is not at an end. Now more than ever we have a moral imperative to bring our troops home from Iraq, take up the cause of the dying American dream, and fix what is broken in the international system. Not impetuously, but soberly, as in the strong and slow boring of hard boards. That is why we remember.
--Tim Fernholz
