Complacency is a state of mind that exists only in retrospective: It has to be shattered before being ascertained. --Vladimir Nabokov
After 9/11, the prevailing view was that "nothing would ever be the same." The sight of bodies plunging 100 stories from the flaming towers of the World Trade Center seared into our psyches the reality that America has cruel and wanton enemies. The USA Patriot Act, which sought to repair some of the intelligence lapses that permitted the 9/11 attacks to go undiscovered, passed the House by a vote of 357 to 66 and the Senate by 98 to one.
Twelve years is a long time, though, and the best you can say about "things will never be the same" is that it's a truism. The ordinary human tendency to relax one's watchfulness creeps back surprisingly quickly -- especially when the president of the United States implies that we can unilaterally declare a war "ended" because we're tired of vigilance and we want to spend money on Obamacare, universal preschool and food stamps.
