For the first time in my life I feel truly American. Vestiges of rebellious third world sentimentality are not erased but they have become much more rational. I feel an unbridgeable distance from those militants across the globe that I previously felt some sort of pity for. Once I thought that even though their methods were disreputable they were still simply misguided people trying to rectify the injustices of the world. No more. Now, having seen their vision of justice, I am appalled that I ever felt some sort of emotional, sentimental connection with them. So what if it was pity and not alliance? So what? It was connection, and I rue that. If I hate them now then I must hate the part of me that did not hate them before. I don’t understand. Do the expositions of our sacred (as is life) Shariah not leave a mark in their heart? Does not the generous and magnanimous character of our Prophet not ring in these people’s minds? They have lashed out like Nietzsche’s master moralists, but I see no nobility in their actions; no honor in their enunciation.

That was what I wrote at 4:30 p.m., on 9/11/01.

Since 2001, the American gaze has been cast across the world. While often misguided, infantile, and reactionary, we have turned into internationalists. We have consumed copies of the Quran, excavated the history of numerous races and religions, become involved -- depending on our ideological stance -- bold or myopic foreign wars. We have articulated a theory that we think will keep us safe going into the future. The blunt among us call it war, or clash of civilizations; those with a bit more sanity call it muscular humanitarianism, or ethical realism, and believe that if we can just keep the world from engaging in strife, we will keep ourself safe from future manifestations of that violence. Yet, in order to accomplish this new policy, we need muscle, we need weapons, we shed blood. We kill. Them there. So they. Don't come here. Within moments, our humanitarianism becomes meaningless. It does not take long before we realize that if we protect ourself at the barrel of a gun, we are only safe if every last of our opponents is dead. So we play a global game in which killing is not just expected, it is lauded. We are confident that in the end we can kill better. We can. We will. We are Americans. We do everything better, more, bigger. The realists among us tell the dissenters to accept the state of the world as it is. I cannot do that.

I am American. I am the child of Emerson, Whitman and Rorty. I believe that justice comes through the application of just laws, not through the acceptance of violence. I believe that the Enlightenment, which, to Kant meant an end of humanity's immaturity, requires that we respond to dysfunctional anarchists with sense, sensibility and ingenuity. In 2001, I was an American, no ifs ands or buts because I believed that we would become greater, better, more honorable. Today, I am an American only with those who do not betray what it means to be American.

With our gaze turned to the world, our interior is crumbling. Bridges that collapse, and cities that are wiped away in floods, and displaced Americans inside America no less, and billions in government appropriations that don't show up on accounting ledgers, and behemoth corporations that do not even bother to give health insurance to their workers. Increasingly impotent monopolization and corporate fraud laws. Investment banks that underwrite public works projects worth $300 million but which somehow don't ever translate into actual buildings. I see an America that has given up its economic supremacy by selling itself to a foreign nation -- China. I see I see an America that has decided that now that demonizing Jews and Blacks is considered wrong, it ought target Gays, Muslims and Sikhs. Our prisons are notorious for the rapes committed inside them -- the penitentiary is ruled by predators. We have no way of integrating out ex-convicts into society. There are vast parts of our major cities which look worse than third world countries. We are spied on from our own government and telecommunication services and we do not wince. We consider it a victory when we take money from our seniors so we can cover, not all, but just 3 million more, children. We punish minor drug possession more than a CEO swiping billions in pension funds. What has our newly internationalist gaze got us? Not more friends. What has our preventive humanitarianism got us? Not a better America.

And, just one more question: where are the Jews who were so long America's conscience? After giving us the Enlightenment (Moses Mendelssohn whom Kant called "irrefutable"), and Freedom of Speech (Justice Brandeis), and Freedom from Evil (Arendt), and Freedom from Tyranny (Bernstein), and Freedom of Association (in Skokie v. Illinois the ACLU attorney was a Jew), and Freedom from Dogma (Phillip Roth), have they decided to call it a day? Are Jews appropriated by the system? I refuse to -- or rather, really want to refuse to -- believe that American Jews will let America be surpassed. The onus is not just on American Jews, that is for sure, but they have to appreciate that they have wisdom, experience, and acumen gained from centuries of struggle, that no one else possesses. I challenge them because they have historically far surpassed every challenge.

When Sauron's gaze was cast across the world, a little ring killed him from within. This 9/11, we must realize that armies cast across the heavens and earths mean nothing without a gaze that knows to look inward.