We have learned NOTHING from our collective response to Sept 11th, 2001. Prepare for the consequences.

In the two decades long wake of bombing, killing, and creation of more violent extremists (inside and outside our nation) the insanity continues.  And it appears to have accelerated globally even before watching the two 2024 Presidential debates. 

James Madison wrote “The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad. ” He highlights this central concern of political philosophy.  The tension between national security and individual liberty.  In this quote, Madison is warning that governments, in the name of defending the nation from external threats (whether real, exaggerated, or entirely fabricated), often create laws or use measures that restrict individual freedoms. These "fetters" (or restrictions) on liberty, according to Madison, are often justified by appealing to the need for protection against foreign dangers. Essentially, he is arguing that governments might exploit foreign threats as an excuse to increase their own power and impose constraints on the freedom of their citizens.  Madison, like many of the Founding Fathers, was deeply concerned with ensuring that the new American government would not become tyrannical.  He feared that the desire for security could lead to an erosion of the very liberties the nation was founded to protect.  Given the global rise in so many threats...both are now threatened with virtually no political will to address global threat collectively with the rule of law or via prevention with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

We are free to do (or not do) whatever we chose...but we will never be free of the consequences.  We continue to choose the illusion of separateness.  And on the national level we claim national sovereignty (independence) as our only global governance system. This inevitably undermines every American's innate individual desire for security.  Why? Because we (our nation) continue to be irresponsible with our military, economic, foreign policy, and wasteful consumption freedom.  This abuse (lack of virtue) comes back to haunt us as terrorism, pandemics, war, economic instability, cyber-attacks, environmental degradation, WMD proliferation, election interference...).  

In his first televised interview after 9-11 Osama Bin Laden said, "the battle has moved to inside America".  "I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden said as the U.S. war on terrorism raged in Afghanistan. "The U.S. government will lead the American people in -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life." 

 http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/01/31/gen.binladen.interview/  

And we were clearly warned in March 2001 by the final report of the bi-partisan US Presidential Commission regarding national security threats in the new century.  It warned policy makers and the public that the worst threat will be terrorism.  Today there are more violent extremist than ever.  And there will be far more before Israel ends its war crimes in Gaze and the West Bank.  Even if every genocidal minded Hamas is exterminated. 

Prepare for the use of biological weapons... with little difficult in delivering them, but nearly impossible to defend against them.  Until its too late.