I’m not sure why you’re getting downvoted. What you’re saying is accurate. I don’t think the terrorists had the foresight to predict this kind of fallout from 9/11, but it has certainly happened none the less.

Bin-laden directly stated Al-Qaeda's goal was to bankrupt the USA. [1] Now that's not what literally happened obviously, but adjusting for propaganda hyperbole and considering he went on to elaborate that they intend to do to the USA what they did to the Soviets - make the war too costly to be worth fighting - it seems their strategy panned out pretty well.

Of course, I don't know that they could have predicted the US invasion of Iraq, for example. On the one hand, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but OTOH Al-Qaeda might have foreseen that the US leadership would not let a good crisis go to waste.

Maybe the main plan was just to fight in Afghanistan, where they know they can carry out guerilla warfare indefinitely, and whatever else shakes out is probably going to play into Al-Qaeda's pocket anyway.

Really the main victory Al-Qaeda and other Islamist terror groups have won is being able to frame the discourse around their atrocities as Islamic terror. It creates tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, which leads to oppression of Muslims, which increases recruitment. In this dynamic, the worse the terror groups are, the more adherents they gain.

1: https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/01/binladen.tape...

Al Qaeda won the first time they made me take my shoes off at the airport.

A lot of these 'idiots' that you're talking about were educated prior to 9-11, so it's not obvious to me that 9-11 had the particular causal relevance that you're suggesting (at least insofar as educational quality).

Anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, government mistrust are hardly unique to the last 20 years.

What destroyed American life were Americans, being scared, thoughtless and not talking to each other, in the name of money, absolute security, patriotism and tribalism.

We were told the vaccine was the end all be all solution that stopped the virus. Many have opted to forego it and accept the risk. What’s so wrong with that? Now it turns out the vaccine isn’t as effective as originally thought, and the folks who decided to not get the jab are now somehow devoid of critical thinking skills? Explain what I’m missing. Or is it really not about death, but the bottom line?

Given that the vast majority of COVID hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated, yes, I would say that people who refuse the vaccine are devoid of critical thinking skills.

Given that they have chosen that destiny willingly for themselves, what's wrong with that? I personally feel it's a bit more nuanced of a decision then you're allowing. What do the vaccinated care? Why does this unvaxxed life matter to them all of a sudden when they've had plenty of opportunities to care about life before but haven't?

And no, I'm not talking about abortion, but everything else on Earth that is considered a preventable death; like car accidents (Ban cars!) and wars that we conveniently forget when about the pendulum swings to our favored political party so we can safely and costlessly say that we've learned and grown and now we're better despite the hundreds of thousands of lives we've cost over the years because we just trusted the "thinking heads" and academics and the corporate elite and government officials in bed with them.

I don't particularly care about the health of the people who refuse to take common-sense actions to protect themselves. But their decision isn't made in isolation.

The more the virus bounces around in people, and for longer, the higher the chance it is that it mutates into something the vaccines won't be effective against.

There are people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. They should not be put at higher risk of having the virus transmitted to them by an unvaccinated person.

There are still enough unvaccinated people floating around to necessitate mask and distancing mandates and other restrictions. Getting everyone vaccinated will likely allow us to return to some semblance of normal sooner.

And finally we have a world full of overworked, exhausted health care workers who still have to admit these foolish unvaccinated people into their hospitals when they get sick. They have to watch some of them die, begging for the vaccine even though it's too late. Why are unvaccinated people inflicting this harm on our doctors and nurses?

The thing that gets me about all this is the whole "they've chosen this destiny for themselves" bit, as if their decisions don't impact anyone else. They do. And it's selfish to ignore that.

I personally don’t care. In fact I think we should pay people who don’t want to get the vaccine to engage in monitoring so that we can understand the disease better. I also believe we should pay covid-hoaxers 100k so that we can infect them and then study why the virus is so dangerous for some people and benign for others. I think it’s a win-win for both.

Your first paragraph laments the expansion of government control and surveillance triggered by 9/11 (which I agree with), but in your next, you use pejoratives to identify people who choose not to get a vaccine or engage in hygiene theater. How would you classify the bully tactics being used by the current administration to coerce citizens into getting a vaccine? This is yet another example of government control and overreach. In this case, gov't is violating personal health (rather than privacy), and the justification is "public health" instead of "homeland security".

> Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers exist precisely because of 9-11.

This statement is non-sense. I'm old enough to remember 9/11. I lived closed enough to watch the smoke rising from the towers. I assure you, my choice to not get the C19 vaccine (and refusal to wear a mask) have nothing to do with the events of 9/11.

The term "anti-vaxxer" is derogatory, and is being used as a demeaning caricature. I don't fit your stereotype. I am not getting the C19 vaccine. That does not mean I am against all vaccinations. A person can believe in the effectiveness of vaccines, and decide against getting THIS vaccine (imagine that). Terms like "anti-vaxxer" are used to demonize those (such as myself) who have decided not to get the C19 vaccine. I guess classifying people as "anti-vaxxer" helps people like you justify calling them "literally stupid."

> We have literally produced idiots across the US because of a horrible educational system. They can’t think critically because they don’t have to. So 20 years of this, and you have a large percentage of the population that are literally stupid and can’t think critically.

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. The irony is that, based on your comments, you'd consider me "literally stupid", and I would say your critical thinking are severely lacking.

> They would rather die than take a vaccine or wear a mask.

I can assure you that if contracting COVID-19 meant certain death, the government would not have to spend millions on propaganda to convince people to get the C19 vaccine. Contracting C19 does not imply certain death: I know this first-hand, anecdotally, and it is backed by statistics published by the CDC (for whatever those are worth these days). In other words, for the overwhelming majority of the population C19 is no worse than the flu. For those with pre-existing health conditions, the risks are greater and the vaccine is a godsend. I won't address the mask fallacy. If you want to wear a mask, by all means. I am not one to pull a binky out of a child's mouth -- whatever it takes to get people to get out and live their lives.

The fact that you jump to the conclusion that "everyone who does not get vaccinated or wear a mask is stupid" does not reflect well on your critical thinking skills. As I've explained above, there are legitimate reasons for not getting the vaccine. Maybe a better approach is to give others the benefit of the doubt, and attempt to engage in meaningful conversation? We likely won't agree on everything, but maybe I'd convince you that people who decide against the C19 are not all "literally stupid".