New President, New Priorities?

A column by Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times today brings up some interesting points. He argues that any presidential candidate running on the 9/11 platform should not be doing so. He says we don’t need a president of 9/11, we need a president of 9/12.
Has our government been harping on 9/11 too much? Friedman says we have become the “United States of Fighting Terrorism.” He wants our next president to know who our enemies are and also who WE are.
This is a tough issue to tackle.
Since 9/11 we have all been looking in one direction, the direction of avoiding future terrorism attacks. Have we forgotten about other priorities? Have we given up freedoms? We have, and the only reason why is because we feel like we have to choose between staying alive and universal health care.
This is not true.
We need to balance our priorities as a nation. Terrorism has been around for centuries and unfortunately will most likely be around for my children’s children to deal with. An act of terrorism is so easy to carry out by cowards, and because it is, we are constantly in fear of it.
The two things that terrorists need in order to succeed are: fear and media attention. The media will continue to give terrorists media attention. But we do not have to give them our fear.
We shouldn’t be as fearful as we are in the first place. In the past few years with the majority of our resources focused on preventing terrorism, we have had zero attacks on US soil. We have made it very difficult to do so. There are so many things going on behind the scenes to protect YOU that it would bewilder you if the curtain were lifted.
I’m not saying that we don’t have to worry, but you can’t worry about everything. You never know when your time is up.
With our new found effectiveness in preventing terrorism I would like to see our government shift some focus to domestic issues. There are too many people without healthcare, too many people living in poverty, and too many school children without textbooks.
Terrorists think that we are in fear of them, we shouldn’t be, we can’t be.
I won’t let a group of cowardly smelly cave dwellers have my fear.
We are the greatest nation in the world; we need to start acting like it.

October 2nd, 2007 at 11:49 am
Oh my goodness what a bunch of whining left wing bilge you’ve found. This is obviously a veiled endorsement of the Democrats and the scumbags over at moveon.org.
Freidman states: “We need a president who will unite us around a common purpose, not a common enemy.” Gee, the last Democrat to do that was Kennedy. I can’t think of a more hated politician out there than Hillary with the exception of G.W. Bush and he’s not running so who on Earth is he looking for?
This mental midget’s idea of uniting the country is bringing all the secular progressives together to bring the country cradle to grave entitlements and open the borders wide.
Hillary’s right on board with this and wants to give every child born in the U.S. $5,000 in Federal money including those born to illegal aliens. What a nice gesture to our friends to the south. She obviously takes the phrase “cradle to grave” literally. And the Democrats complained about the $300 tax rebates, give me a freaking break!
Good lord, I’m going to go take a shower myself as I’m feeling pretty SMELLY myself from wading through all this bilge…
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:49 am
Very well said, Ryan.
Of this much we can be sure: the Republicans will continue to run on a platform of fear and will continue to slander those who disagree with their policies.
How different is the approach of Bush and the current Republican leaders from Republican President Eisenhower, who said: “Every gun that’s made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.”
October 28th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
[...] I simply want to say that corporate media can be reformed for the better with John Edwards in the Oval Office. If that is a sentiment that is incorrect, then I will no doubt look back upon this post in [...]