Today marks the 25th anniversary of the Islamic terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the 2,977 innocent people killed that day are being remembered.
Firefighters ran into burning towers. Police officers led civilians to safety. Emergency medical personnel treated the injured under smoke and debris. Civilians on Flight 93, at the Pentagon, and in Lower Manhattan risked their lives for people they did not know.
The remembrance also reaches beyond that day. The article says the terrorists did not attack America merely as a geographic place. They attacked what America represents: a Western nation, a free people governing themselves, raising families, building communities, and pursuing lives ordered toward human flourishing.
It also argues that the years since then have too often reflected a dangerous belief that freedom can endure without vigilance, or that every ideology fits the American constitutional order. The piece says that is not so.
The big picture: 9/11 was not only a national tragedy, but a test of whether the country would defend the civilizational inheritance that makes liberty possible. That means strong families, virtuous citizens, healthy civic institutions, the rule of law, and a common culture grounded in shared values.
The bottom line: the terrorists wanted fear and division. They failed. But remembrance is not passive. It requires defending the nation, preserving its freedoms, and passing on citizenship that carries duties as well as rights.