A democracy means that we are allowed to criticize our government and the actions that it takes. We are allowed to share our opinions about what we think should happen to those who try and destroy our way of life. The idea of a democracy is extremely important during the aftermath of the Attack on America.
I think it’s great that we all have differing opinions about what should happen to those who were behind the mass murder of our people. That’s what makes us special, as a nation, one nation under God. But if you have a differing opinion from that of your friends or family, does that make you any less American?
More than one person has come up to me and said that they are not getting along with those people who are closest to them because they share different opinions about whether we have a right to bomb Afganistan or even go after a terrorist group, not one person, but a group or if we should close our borders to immigrants.
It doesn’t matter what we each think individually. While we are entitled to our opinions, we need to stick together as a nation during these times. By dividing our opinions, we are fighting against each other when in fact we should be fighting against terrorism in general.
The more we divide ourselves, we weaken our defenses and that means we are letting the terrorists win. Dividing ourselves as a nation means that we are suspeptiable to more terrorism, but in another way.
Fighting with each other is a form of terrorism. It is terrorism that the nation does not need. We need to focus our energies on supporting our government, right or wrong, and those who are fighting to keep our nation free of terror and fear.
We need to focus on helping those the families of the more than 6,000 victims who lost their lives. We need to worry more about them than whether or not we should be bombing another country.
We need to heal together as a nation; let President Bush and the government officials take care of the rest. It is our job to support them and not criticize what they do. They have the entire nation’s best interest in mind.
Many are paralleling this act of terrorism and the war we have only begun to fight to the events of Vietnam. This is nothing like Vietnam. During Vietnam, we were split down the middle as to whether or not we should have been there fighting that way..
Some may not agree with the idea of bombing and killing innocent people in an attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden. But I don’t think there is a person in this nation that doesn’t think we should be doing something.
We are all Americans and we should stick by each other. Respect the fact that your neighbor, friend or roommate may have a differing opinion about what we should be doing.
It’s fine to give your opinions, but remember that your friends are no less American than you if they say we should not have waited three weeks before taking military action.