9/11

9/11/05:

Four years ago today, I shut off the television in the middle afternoon, and walked out into the forests of Georgia. Crossing onto an island in the middle of a creek, I sat down and thought about what we had seen, and what was to come, and wrote "Enid & Geraint."

The first four years have been quite a bit easier than I would have imagined. In spite of the occasional passion, such as we saw in last year's elections; in spite of the occasional horror, such as we saw in Beslan; yet the enemy has proven incapable of fighting war on the terms it has so often threatened. I feel much more peaceful about the future now than I used to, because of the experiences of these last several years. I think that, with time and the continued application of leverage, we shall have something of the revolution we dreamed of seeing in the unfree places of the world -- in Iraq and Afghanistan, certainly, but also in those places which have been inspired to freedom in part by the experiences of those nations. We are seeing democracy strengthened from Malaysia to Lebanon, to name just two places recently unfree and oppressed, where a hopeful glow has emerged.

There is much left to be done, but I think it lies within our power. We must still accomplish more on securing the former Soviet weapons; encouraging nonproliferation; resolving the problem of North Korea, which is particularly difficult; and undermining the enemy in his home through a combination of encouraging democracy and punishing tyranny. There are still plenty of problem areas -- Thailand's south is one I spend a lot of time thinking about -- but we have made some great strides, too.

At home, there is still quite a lot to accomplish. Perhaps the most important matter is the completely unsecure border to our south, followed by the large degree of smuggling on the border to our north. The events of the last few years have also proven that our system is inadequate when it comes to holding the powerful responsible for their actions. Internal partisanship is making it harder to reform the system: one side will name Sandy Berger and certain Senators as being particularly guilty of bad faith; the other side, Wolfowitz and Brown and the President himself. The result has been that no one is punished for anything they do or say, no matter how destructive the effect on national security or the health of the Republic.

It is interesting that, four years on, we should find that we have more problems at home than abroad, but I think we have. The internal tensions of the Republic are now where the most danger lies, from the politics of elections to the Court, and from the securing of the border to the vast increase of government secrecy. It has always been the case that the American political system was our point of greatest vulnerability in this war, even as it is our greatest pride and the thing we are most devoted to defending. We need to be able to keep up the pace and pressure of our actions abroad -- both military and diplomatic -- while pursuing reforms at home.

In order to accomplish that, we need to lower the heat of the political atmosphere so that we can reason together. Encouraging and reinforcing Federalism is surely a major part of that, so that neither Red nor Blue America needs to fear for its way of life. For the same reason, it is important to encourage a Supreme Court that respects Federalism and defers to legislatures when there are no blatant violations of the Constitution. With two vacancies on the Court now, we have an unusual opportunity for influence.

That, at least, is how it seems to me four years on. I don't feel inclined to poetry today -- my own heat is much lower than it was four years ago. Now is the time for rational thinking, to consider how the Republic is changing in the face of the war, and to apply ourselves to ensuring that the changes are healthy rather than destructive for the liberty that is our government's primary purpose.