The costs of post 9/11

Today is 9/11/ 2014, 13 years since the greatest attack on American citizens since the country's formation. Under President Bush he used the events of the day to not only wage a Global War on an Obscure Definition of Terror but also to give this day a new name of remembrance. Patriot Day as it is now called has moved from a somber remembrance of events to debate and confusion, statism and a subjective view of what constitutes Patriotism.

What have we lost?

9/11/2001 around 3,000 people lost their lives in the World Trade Center buildings and the flights used as guided missiles. In the aftermath of the buildings collapsing, the total deaths were recorded at 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. More would succumb to illness caused by the dust and debris in the months and years afterwards, and we can only speculate on those citizens who died as a result of shock at the unfolding of the atrocities of the day. But these are not the only casualties we can add to this. we can also add in the deaths of service members and civilians from America and those of other nations.

According to the website Journalist's Resource "The Brown University project estimated that together, all countries involved have lost a total of 31,000 uniformed servicemembers and military contractors. In addition, the researchers estimated in 2011 that between 152,280 and 192,550 civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan have died as a “result of the fighting at the hands of all parties.” In March 2013, the Brown researchers revised the civilian total estimate to 200,000; and they estimated that 330,000 people had been killed overall as a result of the conflicts, accounting for all soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and civilians involved."

These numbers should do enough to discourage any more operations in the areas, but sadly it does not deter those war hawkish members of the political atmosphere nor a number of citizens from the demolition and destruction of these countries, these people and these futures. 

Lives cost a lot, no one is denying that, but let's take a second to look at the economical impact the past 13 years have taken. According to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) Total spent and obligated through FY 2014 is around 4,374.5 billion US dollars. (2014 dollars) with the Additional Cumulative Interest on Past Pentagon and State/USAID War Appropriations FY 2001‐2013 by 2054 reaching over 7,900 billion. If you are having trouble with converting that, it is 4 Trillion 374 Billion, 500 Million dollars since 2001 and an estimated 7 Trillion 900 Billion dollars. 

All of this is taken directly from increased borrowing from the US Central Bank with loans being paid back with interest by the US taxpayer. That money is being created with the future payments being ladled with interest and being sworn to your children and grand-children and so on. 

Another aspect of what has been lost since 2001.

The rights and privacy lost since 2001 have been explained by many, from Judge Andrew Napolitano to Former House Of Representative and 2008 and 2012 Presidential candidate Ron Paul, from the leaked document of the CIA, NSA, DOJ, DOD and a host of other alphabet soup agencies by the work of Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who took personal sacrifice for the American citizens to a new level. 

All the new security you see and experience when traveling, paid for by increased taxation. All the new background checks you go through, paid for by increased taxation. The departments themselves, who have been the subject to their own leaks of inter-office behavior, are entirely funded by the same ones they are spying on. Let there be no mistake about it, the notion that you can be 100% ok with the amount of agencies and securities that have increased since 2001 and also hold a belief in the reduction of taxation is entirely erroneous. Let it also be noted that in any attempt to curb this behavior or increasing security state bubble is met with resistance by those who value their sense of safety over their sense of morality or sensibility. Hell they even used the word Patriot to pass an act of protecting themselves while spying on you; Patriot Act. 

Over the years Patriots have risen, but did you even notice?

We have already gone over Snowden, Manning and Assange, all who have given their freedom for your knowledge of the facts of the government you live under. There are more examples of those who have made a stand for a belief in what is moral and right.

The Burger King Corporation recently set itself into a media firestorm. With the acquisition of a foreign (Canada) company, the BK Corp saw to move its Headquarters to Canada to escape higher corporate taxation. Now the media and those unknowingly ignorant of economic sense call this move unpatriotic. But how so? Wasn't the Boston Tea Party a patriotic act, in the same sense to avoid undue taxation, the hypocrisy is almost deafening. 

Cliven Bundy did his patriotic duty in his defiance of federal officials to turn over parts of his land to federal department control in the name of bogus claims of conservation of a certain species. He, along with other resistors in name and spirit spent days holding off Federal Department of Land Management officers as they took to try and take what they wanted of property that had no right to.

So on this Patriots day let's remember those that gave their lives, their freedoms and their blood, sweat and tears for what is morally right, what can be more patriotic than a man who fights a tyrannous, overbearing, overreaching, overburdening Government? 

Never Forget: Your government sets its means to kill you, capture you, and steal from you. 

Rise up Patriots!