(Five years ago, today, on Facebook)

It’s been 12 years. During that time, I have seen my country manufacture evidence to start a war with a country that had nothing to do with 9/11; I have seen common people who spoke up against the war denounced as traitors and un-American; I saw what happened to the Dixie Chicks for merely stating they were ashamed of our President; I have seen many of my fellow countrymen passively and unquestioning accept a slew of government surveillance programs that infringed upon our supposedly Constitutionally-protected liberties; I have seen our court system give a stamp of approval to those programs; I have seen the excessive militarization of our police force.

Think about we led our lives before those attacks and how we lead them now. Now, ask yourself if we really are any safer as a result of all this. If you accept the argument that Osama Bin Laden masterminded these attacks because he hated America, then he succeeded in ways he probably couldn’t imagine because America has changed significantly for the worse.

To rephrase something my friend Kate stated, forgive me if I don’t share images of the Two Towers bearing messages about how we’ll never forget or images of crying eagles. I haven’t forgotten. The window just outside my work desk on 9/11 had a clear line-of-sight to the Pentagon, and I saw the smoke and flames first-hand. I went home that day with the smoke plume towering over my head. When I went to work the following day, I could smell from the Metro station I used to commute to work the smoke emanating from the Pentagon a couple miles away.

Don’t you dare tell me I am being un-American for stating some simple truths, and don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t be angry about what I’ve seen America become.

(Political trolling will be deleted with extreme prejudice.)