Ten years ago it wasn’t all to typical for me. Just a week prior I was working for Porivo, a “last mile” performance metrics company in the Raleigh/Durham area of NC. I had a bad vibe that we were about to be let go. Management called a mandatory Tuesday AM meeting (we never had morning meetings) and soon enough 50% of the company was laid off, including myself. So I was still not used to the idea of not having a job. I had slept in a little and woke up for some reason a little uneasy. I hadn’t paid much attention but I had left the TV on and it was on CNN and they were talking about the first plane hitting the towers. I remember the time was 8:55 at that point. I jerked out of bed and was just astonished at what I was watching. A few minutes later my heart just sunk, a feeling I don’t think I had ever felt had come over me. Profound shock, anger, confusion, I almost felt paralyzed seeing the second plane hit live.

I remember scrambling to call my then-girlfriend (now wife) who was at college. It went right to voice mail so I knew she was in class, but I felt uneasy just not being able to get a hold of her. I jumped online and saw that ArsTechnica had two threads on it already. I started jumping on IM, SMSing my friends in NY and other places to make sure they were OK. Soon my wife got a hold of me and I told her to hurry home.

The next couples days I was still in shock to a certain extent. After a quick discussion with my wife we had decided if in the next couple days I did not have a solid job lead we would head back to NY. Before you knew it I was informing the complex we were leaving due to me losing my job and uncertainty of what the future really held at that point. We traveled to Kingston NY where I spent the next two months trying to find a job. I started my web design company, Paris Creative, and had a few leads that helped us to pay the bills. Soon after I had landed a job just before Thanksgiving 2001 just 4 blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. working for the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance.

I will admit I felt a bit uneasy at first working so close to a prime target. I remember numerous discussions with my co-workers that someone could walk right down Pennsylvania Avenue with a suitcase nuke and take a good couple blocks out, and we would be right in that contamination zone. But we pressed on. As days and weeks went by the uneasiness subsided. Things really started to gain some level of normalcy.

Of course this is just what is on the surface. So many things had indeed changed in this post 9/11 world. Massive security changes at the airports. Random bag checks at the subways. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Wiretaps and extraditions. All in the name of security, all using the precursor of 9/11.

I have remained steadfast in my political beliefs. As a progressive I had always been opposed to things like the PATRIOT ACT, opposed to the Iraq war, opposed to the “policification” of our way of life. Security cameras are as commonplace as stop lights. Police over exaggerating threats like a tourist taking a picture. When viral marketing from ATHF can shut down the city of Boston, you know that we might have misplaced our fear with massive overreaction.

9/11 has indeed changed everyone in some way. Some for the good, some for the bad. It is up to us to not only hold in remembrance of that tragic day ten years ago, but to also remain vigilant not only of impeding threats to our nation from the outside, but also remain vigilant of our duties to ensure our way of life has not changed so much that our way of life pre-9/11 becomes irrelevant.

He just wins with 2 EV’s if he is able to maintain a satisfactory average. If the election was held today he would probably win. The question becomes if he has the potential to lose all the < 7.26% states plus a state he “should” win like NM, IA, PA, or NH. So the math is not impossible even for a crazy like Perry or Bachmann to win.

At first sight there is a disturbing fact, every one of the 6 Republican members of the committee have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge to NEVER raise taxes in ANY circumstances. So if they continue to take this unwavering stance of not raising taxes this committee is likely doomed and automatic triggers should kick in and take away from defense and domestic spending.

The only ray of hope here is the triggers will force the hand of these Republican members and consider equal pain for all groups. Will any of them break from Grover’s pledge?

This is not to discount what Democrats have to do. As painful as it will be, some adjustments to entitlement programs are necessary to guarantee their solvency. No it’s not an immediate problem, but it is a problem nonetheless and requires action.

Maybe if we can shed some of the political vitriol that so many people have been slinging for a generation or so, and get back to the basics of governance, then maybe approval for Congress will rise, and our Republic can begin to thrive again.

But to those that have a genuine gripe against Washington spending, a lot of those people identifying themselves as Republicans, where were you from 1/2001-1/2009? Where were you when the largest bureaucracy devised, the Department of Homeland Security, was formed? Where where you when we spent Billions of taxpayer dollars, dollars that the White House hid from the general budget, to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? And did these same people embrace Obama when he demanded cuts in useless military spending? Something tells me no.

No, these protests, are just a farce of the real issue, the bubbling turmoil from the right. The people that would take up arms against their fellow American because their person is not in office. These same people that idolize the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck, and listen to their beckon call to protest without really understanding the specifics of their cause.

Civil debate in the country seems to be taking a turn for the worse. While there are legitimate concerns about the course of American political power, and that rings true for both parties, all that happens is partisan bickering, all that happens is shouting down your opponent when you don’t have the facts to back the screams, all that happens is soured relations between opposing ideals.

And it’s funny that these protesters are seemingly taking it out on a pragmatic president, one that is constantly reaching his arm across the aisle for bipartisan support, where the previous president snubbed any efforts of conciliation and just rammed policy through.

I fear that these protests will grow, that the bigotry that is starting to flow will come faster than people think will happen. I fear that ills of our nation will go unsolved because there are some that simply refuse to break bread with their political opponents. I fear that we will have more turmoil than the nation can truly handle.

I’ve grabbed a few screenshots of the morning after.