People Day. A day… for people.
Very well put, WF Tomba. This is exactly what I would have said if I had half as much eloquence as you do in your little finger.
So, just because they died in a terrorist attack, you’re gonna assume that Bob Accountant and Joe Janitor were saints and not ripping off their clients or sleeping in the closet on the clock. Call me cynical, but I do believe that the acts of individuals should determine the presence of patriotism and not mass, passive victimhood coupled with blind assumptions about character. Now, honoring the memory of victims, regardless of how they came to be, is not a bad thing and I’m not saying we shouldn’t honor them. But turning this tragedy into an opportunity to endlessly flag-wave only politicizes their deaths and does their collective memory no justice at all.
If you’re not being cute… :rolleyes:
Wait, so which smiley do I get if I was?
Patriot Day
Patriot Act
I bet there is a tie in.
How about Compassion Day? What stands out in my mind of that day was the tremendous outflow of compassion among people: strangers clutching each other as tears and fear took hold…people all across the country, whether personally touched or not, feeling the pang of loss and taking a moment to reflect on how precious life is…the bravery of so many compassionately carrying out their duties to save as many as possible at great risk, ultimately, to their own lives…
We saw a lot of good in people that day. Maybe that’s what we should honor. Because that’s what should live on and blossom.
How about two? 
I saw that coming. It had to be you. 
I was thinking of something like Unity Day, although I suspect there already is one.
It was the only time in the 12 years I’ve lived here that people genuinely stopped being black, white, Korean, Cuban, or whatever and started being American.
I agree with Keith Olbermann, who opined that since the Republicans have taken possession of September 11th as their very own campaign tool, to use for terrifying now and future generations of voters, that the day needs to be patented by them and forever more referred to as September 11[sub]TM[/sub].
There’s a bit of a discrepancy, though. We call December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor or The attack on Pearl Harbor. Even if somebody doesn’t know the date, they will probably know the Japanese navy attacked Hawaii, bringing the US into World War II. On the other hand, we call September 11, 2001 September 11, 9/11, etc. We don’t generally refer to it as The World Trade Center attack. In other words, the name is intrinsically linked to the date, making it impossible to remember the event without knowing when it happened.
So you weren’t proud to be an American before then? :rolleyes: :smack:
Then there would be two holidays that are on different days north and south of the border (Thanksgiving being the other one). I’m sure 99.999% of Americans (and probably a similar percentage of Canadians) wouldn’t care, but I’m just sayin’
Where on earth did you get that from? Nothing I said above had anything to do with pride. That said…
a) In fact, no, not really, because I wasn’t an American before then. I moved here when I was thirteen, and I didn’t come from a background of privation and dictatorial government, so it wasn’t as if I came to America and found a land of opportunity. On 9/11 I was 19, and I hadn’t really made up my mind about where I wanted to live or what I wanted out of life or… well, anything, really. I’m still not sure if I call myself an American, but I love the country, its people and way of life, and it is definitely home.
b) I wasn’t talking about my own feelings, anyway; I’m talking about the attitudes of segments of the population toward other segments. Nobody was whining about affirmative action or immigrant labor or gay rights or any of the hundred other things which usually divide us for that one day.
Oh, no, that’s not at all what I meant to say. I have no doubt that there were plenty of people doing Bad Things who were killed. No one is a hero for being in the wrong damn place at the wrong time, nor are you patriotic because you came into the office ten minutes early.
What I meant was yes, they might have been patriotic. I thought that Brown Eyed Girl was implying that there was no possibility that a hapless victim could be patriotic, and by extension, that no Joe Shlub who wasn’t wearing some sort of uniform could be patriotic, or at least as patriotic as say, Joe Soldier.
I’m sure the victims absolutely spanned from ‘miserable sleazeball’ to ‘model citizen’, so I don’t think that any blanket statement regarding their patriotism can be made. And IMO that makes the whole “Patriot’s Day” stupid: fly the flag at half-mast, have a moment of silence, do whatever you want to remember, but we as a nation should knock it off with the slapping idiotic labels on things.
And this is all coming from someone who thinks the whole damn concept of patriotism is stupid (“Whoo! I was…born in a first-world country! America, fuck yeah!”). Either you’re a good citizen who tries to do good things or you’re not - I don’t get the whole “I love you, country!” nonsense.
I am. I mean, at least I know I’m free.
Oh, okay! Well, in that case, carry on. I get what you’re saying now and I’m totally with you.
Woohoo! Go, do-gooders! 
Yeah! They went through all the trouble to make an official holiday out of it and couldn’t give us the day off?
:dubious:
It (“Patriot Day”) also would be ignoring the fact that not only American nationals died in the attacks, 327 foreign nationals also perished.
Argentina: 4
Australia: 11
Bangladesh: 6
Belarus: 1
Belgium: 1
Bermuda: 1
Brazil: 3
Canada: 27
Chile: 2
China: 4
Cote d’Ivoire: 1
Colombia: 17
Democratic Republic of the Congo: 2
Dominican Republic: 1
El Salvador: 1
Ecuador: 3
France: 1
Germany: 11
Ghana: 2
Guyana: 3
Haiti: 2
Honduras: 1
India: 1
Indonesia: 1
Ireland: 6
Israel: 5
Italy: 4
Jamaica: 16
Japan: 26
Jordan: 2
Lebanon: 3
Lithuania: 1
Malaysia: 7
Mexico: 16
Moldova: 1
Netherlands: 1
New Zealand: 2
Nigeria: 1
Panama: 2
Peru: 5
Philippines: 16
Portugal: 3
Poland: 1
Russia: 1
South Africa: 2
South Korea: 28
Spain: 1
Sweden: 1
Taiwan: 1
Ukraine: 1
Uzbekistan: 1
United Kingdom: 67
Venezuela: 1
CMC +fnord!
Interesting that this time the “furriners” count, as opposed to the usual “tragically two Americans were killed when something horrible happened in a country that I can’t pronounce which also killed hundreds of other, um, people”.
Seven freaking years later and Osama Bin Laden is still out there!
Man what a tool our President is.
Before I read this thread, I had honestly forgotten that it was even called Patriots’ Day. Now, from this point forward, perhaps we do need a day honoring Tom Brady’s knee injury, but it would likely be mourned by some and celebrated by others.
Seriously, do people actually use that name? I’ve never heard regular people call it Patriots’ day, just 9/11.
I will not dishonor the memory of those who died on 9/11 by associating their remembrance with the mishmash of jingoism, xenophobia, and abandonment of common sense that came to be known as “patriotism” thereafter.
I think “9/11” or “September 11th” is fine. It will be a couple of generations before anyone doesn’t immediately know what it means. And when they don’t, won’t that be kind of a good thing in some ways? I’m sure the people who died at Pearl Harbor would be happy to know that some people don’t know all that much about what happened because the Japanese haven’t been a threat for decades.
To riff on Bill Maher, I think we should call it Why They Hate Us Day.