Rational Voices

CapitalismMagazine.com: American Phoenix: The World Trade Center Must Rise Again

Columist Michael Giorgino writes: "The World Trade Center must rise again. Those magnificent towers, blasted into ruins by terrorists, must once again soar above New York's skyline."

CapitalismMagazine.com: We Dare Not Tempt Them With Weakness

Columist Michael Giorgino writes: "The angry reactions of the public make more sense than some of the words coming out of the government. When members of your family are dying, you don't worry about what the neighbors will say."

CapitalismMagazine.com: We Dare Not Tempt Them With Weakness

Columist Michael Giorgino writes: "The angry reactions of the public make more sense than some of the words coming out of the government. When members of your family are dying, you don't worry about what the neighbors will say."

Compassionate Voices

FoxNews.com: Rally Around Economy, as Well as Flag

Columnist By Scott Norvell writes: "It is on the backs of consumers and free markets that we have built the most diverse economy, the strongest entrepreneurial ethos, the most socially mobile society the world has ever known. It is this the terrorists want to destroy. Blood is their means, but not their end. Our way of life is what they mean to destroy. We cannot let them. Americans have shown how generous we are in recent days. Now there is one more thing we can do. Just as we rally around the flag, we can rally around the market that made us what we are. We can spend money."

WashingtonPost.com: To Go On Being Americans

E. J. Dionne Jr. writes: "Terror is designed to paralyze. It succeeds when a country loses confidence in itself -- when it gives up what it values most. "The resolve of this great nation is being tested," President Bush declared. Indeed. But how do we define resolve? We should resolve to catch and punish the terrorists -- and to punish those who harbored or trained them. We should discover whether we could have known that this was coming, and how we might be warned the next time. But our central resolve must be to go on being Americans, to remain a people who cherish our liberties and never allow a small, mad group to push us into questioning the value of freedom."

Miami Herald: We'll Go Forward From This Moment

This column, by Miami Herald writer Leonard Pitts Jr., has been widely applauded around the New York metropolitan area. It's a powerful piece that concludes with these words: "What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started. But you're about to learn."

Miami Herald: Just for being Americans . . .

Humorist Dave Barry gives up the jokes for a serious column. He writes: "They want us to die just for being Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian Americans, young Americans, old Americans. Baby Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us. And then their supporters celebrated in the streets. I'm not naive about my country. My country is definitely not always right; my country has at times been terribly wrong. But I know this about Americans: We don't set out to kill innocent people. We don't cheer when innocent people die."

Reason.com: Struck, but not conquered, Americans will get back to business

Michael W. Lynch writes: "To the extent its message can be discerned at this point in time, the attack was a generalized assault on the freedom the United States represents-as much an attack on consumer capitalism as it was on U.S. foreign policy. To restrict that freedom would be to surrender to terrorists."

Reason.com: How to pay tribute to the victims

Nick Gillespie writes: "With the destruction of the World Trade Center and much of its surroundings in lower Manhattan, there are serious questions about what to do next, with some suggesting that a memorial park be built on the site of the single greatest act of terror and destruction in U.S. history. Such thoughts are eminently understandable and certainly it will be a long time before the physical debris is removed, much less the psychic scars healed. But it would be a far greater tribute to the American character and to those who died on September 11 to rebuild on the site of the World Trade Center not a replica of what was, but a newer, larger, forward-looking complex--one that would hallow that bloody ground by providing the next generation with even greater possibilities for the future."

Cautious Voices

Don't Sacrifice Freedom
Glenn H. Reynolds writes: "When things went wrong in ancient times, our pagan ancestors tried to appease the gods by destroying that which they held dearest, hoping that their sacrifice would purchase their safety. In modern times, we sometimes resort to the same practice -- though what we are asked to place on the altar is not a goat, or even a child, but our freedom."

Cato.org: An Important Distinction and Decision

Charles V. Pe