The Importance of Words

  Amongst all the fear mongering from the ironically named right wing, and the impassioned response of the left; we have forgotten something (if we ever knew it.) We have conflated invulnerability with invincibility. There are two things we must remember: We are invincible. We are not invulnerable.
  The United States is still, by far, the most powerful nation on earth. No nation or group of nations could defeat us. Terrorists? Zero chance. But by forgetting the difference between those two words, we give the terrorists their opening. For while we are, absolutely, invincible; as a free society we are also vulnerable-- we can be hurt. If we fail to make the distinction between the two, or worse-- if we come to believe that the two are inextricably combined, then we run the risk of becoming a closed, paranoid state, like so many others in history. And just as those preying on our fears seem to want.
  We can survive attack. We survived September 11th. We survived the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the massacre in San Bernardino. And we will survive the next attack when it comes. Just as the French survived the Paris attacks, as the British survived the London bombings, as the Spanish survived their attacks; and as every other nation has survived. It is only by giving in to fear and stooping to their level that we will let the terrorists win.
  Benjamin Franklin said that those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. I would like to remind the cowards and fear-mongers among us that the first duty of the government is not to protect us at any cost. The first duty of our government is to protect our freedom at any cost.