Since that day I estimate the term has appeared hundreds of thousands of time in print. In a cursory Lexis/Nexis search of 50 major newspapers worldwide the term 9/11 has been used 977 times in a headline in just the last 6 months. The New York Times used it 92 times, The Washington Post 53 times, and the L.A. Times 50. A brief sampling shows the international press has been a bit more restrained during the same time period: European news sources used it as a headline 525 times, Asia/Pacific new sources 226 times, and Middle East/African news sources 121 times.

The biggest offenders, of course, are those at the White House who drone on ad nauseam about 9/11. For them it has been a Godsend as they use the term daily to mask the myriad of screw-ups they have authored since that fateful day. Bush must have had that term tattooed on his ass, because that event saved it and him from being a one-term president, and quickly forgotten. It's hard to remember a speech where he hasn't invoked the term or the words that have now become synonymous with it, liberty, freedom, and terrorism, which he used 105 times in the 2005 State of the Union Speech.

Contrary to the popular rhetoric, nothing has changed for most Americans since 2001. We blithely go about our lives unfazed by the events of that day. We have not made any sacrifices other than the slight inconvenience we may experience at the airport.

We continue our spending frenzy, piling up masses of public and private debt for our grandchildren. We shop and party disconnected from what is being done in our names in Iraq and around the world. The perfect metaphors for this disconnect are the Bush twins whose partying around the D.C. area is routinely reported in the Style section of the Washington Post. That coverage is nicely juxtaposed against the front-page news where their father, often pictured surrounded by soldiers, pays lip service to the words duty, sacrifice, and service to one's country. The girls, like the rest or us, just want to have fun.

But nowhere is the party grander than in Congress. They love the phase 9/11 and use it to justify every piece of pork they can produce. Invoking the term 9/11 means you can even build a bridge to nowhere as Alaska's Senator Stevens has artfully shown. The Federal Mint can barely print money fast enough to keep the troughs filled for the record amounts of wasteful spending that has ensued since 2001.

Under the con of making the country more secure, Bush and Congress have created three bottomless money pits: The Department of Homeland Security, The Transportation Security Administration, and the war in Iraq. All of which have contributed substantially to the Gross National Product, but have done nothing to make the world or us safer.

Unfortunately for the world, as events have confirmed, we had the wrong man in office at the wrong time on that September day in 2001. While the smoke was still billowing from the ashes of the Two Towers we chose the wrong path for humanity, and the right one for the weapons manufacturers, the defense contractors, and the warlords.

Since that day the United States government has been committing atrocities around the world by slaughtering and torturing people, while wiretapping and lying to citizens at home. In Iraq alone, Bush notes that we have freed 30,000 Iraqi citizens from the bonds of enslavement by killing them. At our covert gulags around the world, we lock up anyone we choose, for as long as we like, and deny them basic rights.

To much of the world we have become a monster. Lying, killing, and torturing are now justified and accepted by many Americans as necessary ingredients to keep us safe from another 9/11. We are an uglier, meaner, less compassionate country. In letters to editors around the country people routinely support and even advocate for more control, more sanctions, more government intrusion into our lives. Have we lost our minds? We have certainly lost our way.

I don't want to live in a country where anyone's rights are abridged, even terrorists. Where the government operates in secrecy and abuses it power and it's people. Where the president can commit crimes and not be held accountable. I don't give a damn about living securely if I have to give up one tiny bit of my freedom guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Not one bit!! In this regard I consider myself in line with the patriots of New Hampshire whose motto "Live Free or Die" is right on! There can be no erosion of these Rights if we are to remain free. These Rights are the bedrock of our security, of our freedoms, and our liberty. Let's reaffirm those rights for everyone, especially those who died back in 2001.

Let's sing Auld Lang Syne to the term 9/11.

Bud A. McClure is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is on sabbatical this year living near Washington D.C. He can be emailed at bmcclure@d.umn.edu.

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