Over on Liberty Log there’s a long but good piece by William Cooke in praise of skycrapers and critical of the Prince of Wales for being critical of skyscrapers. Some while ago William Cooke asked me if the Libertarian Alliance might like to publish this piece. My problem was the way it ended:
If we resurrect the Twin Towers and make them better and stronger they will be living memorials and signs of hope for the resurrection to come on the great day of the Lord. Every family member who lost a loved one, when they look at the new Towers, will not only be able to see that we refused to surrender to the terrorists, but that we have hope and trust that in the end God Himself will set all things right and see that justice and peace are brought about on the earth.
Well they may be able to say such a thing, but what if they think that everything after “but that” is gibberish and don’t want to say it? And what if many more, who didn’t lose any loved ones in the outrage but who likewise don’t want terrorism surrendered to, feel similarly? This paragraph is a pointless exercise in coalition breaking, an attempt by a Christian to take posthumous possession of some classic symbols of don’t-care-what-religion-you-are-so-long-as-you-want-to-do-business secular materialism for his team.
But although Cooke’s piece ends very religiously, the thing as a whole is insufficiently religious. The religion is merely bolted onto the end. This means that it can’t really be a Libertarian Alliance Religious Note but would be a bit odd as anything else.
But the fact that I was unable to classify this piece of writing to suit my own editorial categories, and instead put it to one side (the side you never get back to unless prodded), shouldn’t put anyone else off reading a mostly very good piece.
Just before Cooke’s piece gets religion, it goes like this, agreeing with the Anne Coulter piece that I linked to on Friday 7th:
But, the best memorial may be two giant towers, like the ones that stood there before. Atta and his gang hated the Towers for their architecture and for what those buildings stood for – namely freedom, capitalism, western power, and modernity. To rebuild would send the message that they didn’t win and that our society and our culture will prevail. Those people who died there would want us to go forward in the world with that message.
Which is how and where the thing should have ended.
