united 93

Chris Knight's avatar

This blog commented about the issue a little over four months ago: how some of the families of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 were petitioning the federal government (and then-President George W. Bush in particular) to seize private property by eminent domain so as to have a memorial to those who died in the 9/11 attack.

Well, those families are getting what they wanted: the federal government is about to CONDEMN land from seven owners so as to build a 2,200 acre “memorial site”, and it’s planning to rush the proceedings through so that the thing can be ready in time for the tenth anniversary of the hijackings.

I’ll probably draw some flack for asking this aloud, but: what the HELL did those innocent people who died on United 93 actually DIE for, if the American government is now STEALING private property?

This is an act of ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Many of the families of passengers who died aboard United Airlines Flight 93 want George W. Bush to approve a seizure by the federal government of the field where the ill-fated flight crashed on the morning of the 9/11 attacks. The families want to turn the field into a memorial.

In other words, these people want to implement socialism to commemorate freedom.

I have never liked “eminent domain” uses like this, which is what the United 93 families are trying to call the seizure. But this isn’t for something needed like a highway or whatever. In this case it boils down to taking privately-held property (owned by Svonavec Inc.) by force of government, for benefit of a very few people.

Look, I think that what the passengers on United 93 did was courage personified. And their example is certainly something that all people can look to as an act of ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Tonight was the night that United 93 premiered on HBO. If you have HBO-W it’ll be coming on again in another hour or so. We watched it in full glorious high-definition.

This one is going to be haunting me for the next few days, I just know it.

United 93 was the plane that was hijacked on 9-11, that the passengers fought back before it could hit its intended target (presumably this was going to be the Capitol building). Instead it spiralled into the ground in a field in rural Pennsylvania.

This was the first movie about 9-11 that I’ve ever seen. I’ll almost certainly be picking up the DVD for this soon. United 93 is one of the finest historical movies that I’ve seen, and it captures the intensity of that horrible day… I don’t want to say beautifully, but it does resonate strong if you were watching it ...

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