I know this “quote” was discredited as an internex hoax, but I still appreciate the sentiment. Who says you have to be famous to be quoteable?

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

–credited to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

The concept of those 9/11 commemorative coins and the new “Patriot Day” makes me feel nauseated. 9/11 is not a holiday, George, and it’s not about patriotism. The fact that it shares the name with The Patriot Act makes it even worse. It’s like calling Holocaust Remembrance Day “Jewish/Gay/Gypsy/etc Pride Day.” 9/11 could have become a Memorial Day for the victims of terrorism worldwide, but now it’s in the calendars as a day for American national chauvanism. They do realize that it wasn’t only Americans that died on that day? What in the name of all good and holy is going through these people’s minds?

Oh, and more hypocrisy.