The right to be ignorant

For weeks since the Sept. 11 attacks I have listened – often in shocked disbelief – to a number of liberal academics as they tried to justify their own bitterness and hatred of this nation's success by admonishing the rest of us to "respect the diversity" and maintain a climate of "objectivity" about those who committed the atrocities.

Why some of the most successful people in the nation – upper-echelon college professors and other academics making above-average wages and enjoying lives of relative leisure – can be so ticked off at the very country which enabled them to achieve their success is something I'll never understand.

But, having said that, I also can say with a clear conscience that these same angry, confused people are a big part of what America is all about. They are a big part of why this nation is worth fighting for.

I'll tell you, as aggravating as some of these liberals can be with their comments, in our country, you can be an ungrateful ignoramus and live to tell about it another day. That's the manner of true freedom.

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In other countries – Afghanistan, for instance – a citizen could not speak freely. In fact, Afghani citizens were jailed or killed for not wearing the proper clothing or facial hair. Music deemed "frivolous" was banned, and all news – and resultant points of view – were strictly controlled by government forces.

In every sense of the word, that's what we call tyranny. It's that kind of government many of these complaining liberals seem to prefer. They'll say they don't, but look – if you're going to blame your own country for being attacked by terrorists, as many have, then how can you honestly say you're a true-blue American patriot?

Ah, but there's the catch: You don't have to be a true-blue American patriot to live – and live well – here. Hell, even some of our poorest people are our fattest, most well-fed people.

That's pretty damned good in a country that is supposedly deserving of the death and destruction wrought upon us Sept. 11. That's pretty damned good for a country that is supposedly so evil it spends all its time oppressing and killing innocent people all across the globe.

Are there places on the planet the U.S. government should abandon? Yes. Is every one of our foreign policies the correct foreign policy? No.

But did 5,000 of our people deserve to die like dogs Sept. 11? No. Do we now deserve to die slow deaths from further biological or chemical-related terrorist attacks? No – and neither do our liberal academics who seem forever bitter about their own success stories in their own country.

America isn't perfect but that's because it is inhabited by human beings and human beings also are not perfect. More than anything in a generation, the Sept. 11 attacks are forcing Americans to reexamine their lives, the direction our country was going, public and foreign policies, and – yes – even the rhetoric of a few bitter liberal academics.

In the end, we Americans will do the right things and make the right decisions. Free people tend to do that, no matter how bitter our vocal minority can get.

That is the best example of the strength of our freedom and liberty. That we can allow differences of opinion – even unpopular opinions during the most trying times of our generation – and still remain strong and vibrant is the embodiment of the kind of liberty and justice for all that a few professors and liberal academics still don't seem to understand.

And after all that education, too.

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