A topic NOBODY wants to talk about

Or if they do, they haven't seen fit to bring it up yet.


Does anybody ever think about how different everything would be if 9/11 had never happened? Obviously it would be vastly different, we wouldn't be looking for terrorists every time we turned around, people wouldn't have to dread being manhandled, groped, strip and cavity searched just going to the airport, there wouldn't be a war going on in the Middle East involving U.S. soldiers, and hundreds of millions of lives wouldn't be devastated or ruined.

But aside from that, does anybody think about how different things would actually be if 9/11 had never occurred? Maybe the people who were older when it happened have a better idea, I was only 11 at the time and prior to the World Trade Center being blown up the only great tragedies I was aware of were like when a neighbor died or when Princess Diana died, that's a hell of a step to take in the way of exposure to national/international tragedy, and from there everything just snowballed together.

From my own perspective the things I can acknowledge would be vastly different, I wouldn't be dead set against flying or traveling out of the country, I wouldn't have had any reason to get in a panic when I was 12 and opened packages in the mail and found some white residue in the boxes that looking back now was probably just dust, and my mother would not be worried about what books I've checked out from the library for the past 10 years because the government is watching that to see who's a terrorist (really, what the hell? When are terrorists found out by their reading material?) Otherwise, I'm not sure right offhand how different my life would be, but until recently I never tried imagining what if we hadn't had to go through that?

I don't talk about what if 9-11 never happened for the same reason I don't ponder what if WWI never happened and the consequences of that FAR outweigh what's happened in the world since 9/11/01. In fact, WWI help put us on the path to the 9-11 attacks. I don't dwell on "what if" because we can't put that genie back in the bottle. Move on.

Alan Smithee wrote: I don't talk about what if 9-11 never happened for the same reason I don't ponder what if WWI never happened and the consequences of that FAR outweigh what's happened in the world since 9/11/01. In fact, WWI help put us on the path to the 9-11 attacks. I don't dwell on "what if" because we can't put that genie back in the bottle. Move on.

What if the assasination attempt on Hitler had worked?
What if the Catholic Church hadn't taken over the last of the Roman Empire?
What if Mohammed never got a following of ragheads?
What if my dad had not got kicked out of the Marines in 1941?

DON'T GO THERE! It's just spinning wheels.

Shale wrote:


What if Mohammed never got a following of ragheads?
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Shale, that wasnt very nice

It's really impossible to say.

one thing that happens now is that the 9/11 victims are put on a pedestal as if the loss of their lives are so much more tragic, or that their lives were much more worthy than others.

I had two friends who died while we were in school, and i was refused a moment of silence for them. However, one of our graduates died in the towers, and his football jersey was retired, the stadium named after him, a street, an annual golf fundraiser.. and now they want to change the name of one of the elementary schools to his. THAT is ridiculous. I feel bad for his family, i cannot imagine how they suffered. However, why is his life or their suffering any greater than anyone else's? He was not even ATTENDING the school at the time... but the boys i wanted a moment for 8yrs prior were. SMH

CeCe wrote:It's really impossible to say.

I agree. I have a hard time imagining how things would be different had it not happened. 911 undoubtedly changed the world, but to what degree I don't know. My question in this is if it hadn't happened ON that day, would it have still happened on a different day and how would life be different because of THAT.

Jason B. wrote:

I agree. I have a hard time imagining how things would be different had it not happened. 911 undoubtedly changed the world, but to what degree I don't know. My question in this is if it hadn't happened ON that day, would it have still happened on a different day and how would life be different because of THAT.

What if Gore had (rightfully) been president? What if it had happened during Clinton's term? So many things to factor in. The act as well as the timing all play a part.

Hard to say. National security was obviously beefed up as a result...if it hadn't happened, then I agree with Jason B. that something similar would have happened sooner or later, and who knows what the fallout of it would have been.