It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, and we’ve been through a lot. We’ve created new ineffective and unaccountable bureaucracy, instituted ever-more intrusive government spying on citizens, subjected ourselves to humiliating security theater in order to get onto an aircraft (and into a museum, or government building). We have discovered or re-affirmed the arrogant, incompetent fecklessness of those who falsely consider themselves our moral and intellectual betters, on both sides of the aisle, to the degree that we now understand that there was really only one side of the aisle, a discovery that has given us in the White House a boorish, exaggerating, constitutionally and economically ignorant impulsive lout, indifferent to the truth who, yet, is still vastly preferable to anything else realistically on offer. The decline of our educational system, from kindergarten through grad school, continues apace, with a majority of young people, innocent of or being mistaught history, under the burden of a disastrous and cruel college loan program, now ignorantly desirous of the ideology that murdered tens of millions of people in the last century, and believing that the world will come to an end of we don’t ban the energy sources that have brought so many billions out of poverty over the past two centuries, and will continue to do so unless they get their wish.

I’ll probably update this post throughout the day with further thoughts and links, but to start, here’s something from a Millennial (who understandably hates the term): The side takers:

…if you want a pithy term for us, something that quickly defines us, the thing that our lives bent on, don’t call us Millennials. The turning of the millennium only mattered from the cozy confines of the 1990s, looking forward unaware of what was coming. Nobody who actually lived through that time can still honestly believe that’s the most important thing that occurred. But don’t call us 9/11ers either, obviously, or nobody in our generation will ever get to fly on a plane again.

No, call us the Side-Takers. We’re Generation Faction, Gen Polar, the Pick-A-Team Kids. We showed up to a cold civil war that far predated us just in time to pick our friends. 9/11 separated the future Tea Partier and MAGAmerican from future Anti-fa terrorists, because it was the moment we truly became aware that there were two very distinct kinds of Americans and the two did not reconcile easily. It shaped our whole lives, and I suspect that long after we’re all dead, we’ll be remembered— not for organic gluten-free soy infused everything, stupid haircuts, excessive beards, phone addiction or the social media epidemic—but for that.

[Via Sarah Hoyt]

[Update a few minutes later]

A Twitter thread from Joan of Aargghh:

Re: The Media and 9/11:
The Mainstream Marxists posing as “objective reporters” are much our source of trouble. They hide well behind the sickly conceit of their self-importance, apportioning the lots of fact and opinion according to the dictates of their perverted schemes.

— Joan of Argghh! (@JoanOfArgghh) September 10, 2019

[Update a few more minutes later]

Thoughts on Flight 93, and the failure of the political establishment to make us afraid.

Also,

But while we aren't at war with Muslims qua Muslims, much of Islam has been at war with the West for thirteen centuries. This was just the latest flare up. Until it is reformed, and those who believe in Dar al-Islam and Dar al-harb are marginalized, it will continue.

— Rand Simberg (@Rand_Simberg) September 11, 2019

[Thursday-morning update]

More thoughts on the perfidy of the NYT from Jim Treacher, and Stephen Kruiser.

Plus, Mark Steyn on the language of losing.