Don’t miss my upcoming appearances:

The Las Vegas Trading Conference, Oct. 4-5

The Dallas Money Show October 13-14

and the New Orleans Investment Conference, Nov. 1-4

Millions of Americans were Affected by the Terrorist Attack on 9/11

Today is the 18- year anniversary of the tragic events that surrounded the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon back in 2001.  I do not wish to make light of the suffering of the individuals who died tragically, not only the people who lost their lives on the ground, but also the ones aboard the airplane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. And, of course, thousands of families were profoundly affected by those events, and they're still affected by those events today.

Loss of Liberty and Freedom

So, what I am about to say is not to minimize their suffering, but there are 300 million or so Americans who were not personally affected by those events, other than the fact that we certainly empathize with our fellow citizens who did have to endure the tragedy on a more personal level.  But on a broader level, the biggest loss, historically, from those events is not just the loss of lives and the family members who lost loved ones, but all Americans who lost individual liberty and freedom.

Self-Inflicted Loss

That is the real tragedy, historic tragedy of 9/11. The tremendous loss of individual liberty and freedom. America today is a far less free society than it was prior to those attacks 18 years ago. And that means that the terrorists won. They didn't win based on the damage that they inflicted.  They won based on the damage that we inflicted on ourselves. The self-inflicted wounds are much greater on a national scale than the terrorists' direct acts.

And it's not just the 300 million Americans who are alive today. It's all the Americans yet to be born who are going to be born into a society that is far less free than America would have been but for these attacks.