David McElroy

Just like so many of my animals, Merlin just showed up on my porch and never left. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know who his mother was. I just know that a new cat started hanging out in my neighborhood and then adopted my porch as his own. Eventually, he came inside and never left.

I rarely name animals for their physical characteristics, but Merlin was an exception. A woman I was dating at the time pointed out that the white fur around his nose and neck made him look like an older man with a white beard and mustache — very much like the wizard of ancient myths. So he became Merlin because of the wizard who I figure is the most famous of all time. It’s been a good name for him.

Merlin is a very calm and good-natured cat, but there’s a small part of him that had trouble learning to enjoy being inside where he’s safe. Yes, Merlin still wanted to chase birds and squirrels. He can sometimes sit in an open window for hours, intently peering at every movement of other animals in the trees just outside my office windows.

For a long time, I didn’t worry too much about this, but Merlin eventually decided to make a jailbreak.

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Despite being the biggest economic and military superpower of the world, the United States was defeated 10 years ago today by a bunch of guys with box cutters and a simple plan.

It didn’t have to be that way. As bad as the attacks 10 years ago were, the real defeat has come in the U.S. response over the years. The initial losses were devastating, but they were nothing compared to the self-inflicted wounds that came from politicians using the attacks as an excuse to take more power for themselves — and scared Americans have allowed it to happen with little complaint.

Everybody in the world is doing a retrospective on the anniversary today, so I’m going to try not to belabor the same things everybody else is already saying. But I do want to make five points.

First, the ultimate blame for the attacks 10 years ago today rests solely with the people who planned it, enabled it and carried it out. They have ultimate responsibility for having murdered thousands of innocent people that day. As we look to the historical causes and to the bumbling response of the U.S. government, it’s important to remember that those men consciously chose to do something very evil. It’s also important to remember the many thousands of people who died — people who never asked to be caught up in a political dispute that they didn’t create.

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Have you met the new neighbors? They’re the ones who moved in next door with the 12-foot-tall rock concert speakers and the complete set of electric guitars and amps that make your bedroom windows rattle when they fire up each day at 5 a.m.

It wasn’t so bad when they were just papering the front of the house with old heavy metal posters, but things really turned odd when they set up the firing range in the side yard — where she does drunken target shooting with automatic weapons and he does nude interpretive dance with a parrot riding on his curly head. Cool, huh?

Isn’t this what paradise looks like for libertarians and anarchists? Don’t we want people to be able to do anything they want, just as long as they stay on their side of the property line? Well, yes and no. Let’s separate fact from hyperbole.

Most people assume that libertarians and anarchists want to live in a world with no rules. For some percentage of freedom lovers, that’s true. They don’t really care what anybody else does, just as long as they keep the weirdness on their own property. These folks don’t mind living in ugly, junky neighborhoods with people who have all sorts of weirdness going on in full view.

I’ve known quite a few people who claim to feel this way. I’m not one of them.

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