"And we choose to live in a place that we know is a target for fanatics because fanatics will always target the things we prize most: openness, diversity, sky-high ambition and the belief that we are more than simply our racial or religious identities." Which fanatics would those be? American or foreign?
Since 2001 approx 400 Americans have been killed by foreign terrorists while 400,000 Americans have been killed by home grown terrorists. Understand this, when you are being shot at or bombed it is terrifying no matter who you are or what civilization you belong to. I imagine the citizens of Tehran were quite terrorized when "shock and awe" dropped out of the sky on them in 1991.
We are not being targeted because of our openness, or our democracy, or our wealth. We are targeted because the West, including the U.S.A., has spent the better part of the last century subjugating, colonizing, and basically ignoring the humanity of the people of the Middle East. We have backed murderous and inhuman dictators, from Saddam Hussein to the Saudi royal family, which has left the populations of the Middle East desperate.
Had we followed our invasion of Afghanistan with an invasion of the Army Corp of Engineers to rebuild their infrastructure and help them modernize we might have done something to win some hearts and minds.
We have Special forces in Africa. China has engineers and builders.
8
This is not only at attack on the United States. It is an attack on all of what constitutes civilization in the world. This man, a vindictive loser, by all accounts, was able to find salvation for himself in the flicker of his computer screen. This is the glass half-empty of the internet age. Whether it be neo-Nazis in Virginia, banlieu radicals in Paris, or an Uzbeki trucker in New Jersey...they sit at their computer every night filling their empty lives with a world-view of hate and resentment. If the Germans had the will to ban nazi hate speech and holocaust revisionism after WW2 we should have the courage to force google, facebook and twitter to block extremist websites and to report calls to violence. Libertarians will scream...but the fact is that the internet is not a 'public place' it is a business environment controlled by major corporations and these corporations have a civic duty to keep hate fueled rhetoric from infecting their customer base and putting the rest of us at risk. Free speech laws were meant for a civilized society not for the spewings of medieval murderers.
1
A Professor, what are you talking about? Most of the witnesses interviewed by the media were of color. Stop telling lies. My first instinct was to not respond to your ridiculous and untruthful statement, but we have to stand up to liars.
"Disasters that strike close to home..." Disasters? Clever passive tone and implication, but I'm not buying it. This was no "disaster" but instead cruel and calculated mass murder under the banner of radical Islam, a force which many residents of liberal bastions (such as NY city) refuse to acknowldedge, let alone actively oppose.
2
Flyover America is usually devoid of ostriches who cannot see Islamic terrorism for the plague that it is. Real America? I live here and I love it, but Real America it isn't.
2
Oh, poor us. We suffer so much undeserved pain. Well, we can dish it out but we can't take it. War is terror, period. We make war anywhere we want for the flimsiest of reasons. WMDs? Nah. The Domino Theory? Nah.
Real terror is things like "Puff the Magic Dragon", cargo planes that were loaded with tons of ammo and a gun that fired 20,000 rounds a minute. They flew until the ammo was gone. Then there were cargo planes loaded with tons of Agent Orange.
I once worked with a guy from Laos whose first childhood memory was of cowering in a hole while his primitive little village was being attacked by our jets.
We write the rules and then cringe when other people play by them. Suck it up America. We get what we deserve.
2
Keep in mind, the plowing into crowds of people in this country is nothing new. This time it's in NY and it's a "terrorist" - that is to say, if you don't support jihad, ISIS, etc., then you're just another crazy. . . Just different ways to reconcile the same thing - murder.
Well done.
Thank you for your fatuous piece, Bret. I will always like New Yorkers, but I'm as "true" an American as they. We all have our pride of place; we can enjoy it without demeaning others.
New York`s terror is our new now.
From day 1 the Times has referred to this incident as a 'terrorist' attack. The much more deadly recent Las Vegas attack was never referred to by the Times as a 'terrorist' attack. Can anyone explain this discrepancy other than relying on the perpetrator's skin color?
4
All the talk about why the latest terrorist attack occurred and what we can or should do to stop future attacks ignores two realities. First, there is nothing we can do as a practical matter to offset the attraction that ISIS and similar groups have for people like Sayfullo Saipov. ISIS offers life (and death) with meaning, albeit horribly twisted, to those who are unable to find meaning in a Western lifestyle.
Second, if we really are determined to prevent persons radicalized by ISIS from committing murder in its name we can have 24/7 monitoring of internet activity. That obviously would constitute a huge invasion of our privacy. If we choose to preserve our privacy rights rather than take additional steps to ensure our safety that is perfectly understandable and laudable. But let's not pretend that there is nothing that we can do to prevent ISIS-inspired radicalization and instead acknowledge that our decision to choose privacy over safety will inevitably result in the loss of some lives that otherwise could have been prevented.
1
You have done something that needs to be done again and again: the normalization and humanizing of people on both sides of the political spectrum. We are not Republicans and Democrats first. We are people, on both sides and even at the extremes. We have so much more in common that not, and we have to re-build our communal respect for each other. Liberal is not a dirty word, an automatic negative, nor is the phrase Trump Voter. How do bridge this growing divide? You took one step.
1
Since the shooting in Las Vegas, over 900 people have died through gun violence in this country, and on the same day as this attack in New York, 3 people were gunned down at a Walmart near Denver. We are terrorized every day in this country by our own citizens, but it takes something spectacular in our largest city to get attention. Closing the borders to Hispanics and Muslims will not solve the problem of our own citizens killing each other at a steady pace. Does a culture of violence only breed more violence? Does the inability to find solid, meaningful work encourage disaffection and rage against those who seem to have something going for them?
2
I admire the writing of this piece and clearly Bret Stephens is brilliant. And everything he writes in this piece about NYC is spot on. It is hard however to go along with all of his arguments when they come across as cosmopolitan, rootless, arrogant. I truly admire Stephens as a thinker. But just because he relates to immigrant strivers does not also mean he ought not relate to struggling working Americans who have been here for generations. I wish his writing would stop the self aggrandizement of his own cohort's accomplishments and look more compassionately at all Americans. Again, brilliant thinker. But perhaps rethink some core ideas about "sky-high" success and how you're somehow contributing more to society than others. It's that attitude that is at root of some ugly inequalities.
1
Mr. "fair and balanced" Bill O'Reilly proclaimed after the Las Vegas slaughter that this was "the price of freedom". So why am I not hearing him say so this time?
2
Its extraordinary that this is the first "terrorist event" since 9/11. Very nasty, frightening and sad but not unusual in many cities in Europe and the rest of the world. I've lived in NYC most of my life and my kids were little at the time of 9/11. If its of any comfort to anyone with small children now, my kids don't remember anything about it!
1
Quiz: Do you think that Donald Trump's rhetoric, policies and actions since entering the presidential race and winning the election have protected us better from homegrown or foreign bred terrorist acts, or has he made us less safe in this regard?
Answer: I think less safe is the correct response. Enflaming the Muslim community with bombastic nativistic campaign rhetoric, espousing policies that have to rational relationship to safeguarding the country from terrorism, and continuing to spew incendiary tirades against the Muslim community is helping ISIS radicalize young Muslims whose families have moved here. Mr. Stephen has hit on relevant notes here, I hope in future columns he exposes the dangers presented by this president and the disproportionate reactions of "the heartland" towards anyone who's not a White Christian.
"NYC is a metropolis of 8 million people so the death of 8 people is a personal tragedy but statistically insignificant."
With all due respect the death of even one person is a tragedy for the entire community and not just a 'statistic'
“And we choose to live in a place that we know is a target for fanatics because fanatics will always target the things we prize most: openness, diversity, sky-high ambition and the belief that we are more than simply our racial or religious identities.”
This is exactly why terrorists don’t strike some village in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.
Both sides are Real America however I would rather live in the NYC verison. My kids moved into rural America to a place were most are white Christan. My young grandchildren have never seen some of the nationalitys or religions that they hear about on TV, they never have the chance to see these are real people just like them, not the monsters of Fox 5 or the GOP.
2
The word "terrorist" is meaningless at this point. Why is someone a "terrorist" because they are an immigrant, but the Las Vegas shooter, Timothy McVeigh and Dylan Roof are not? If home grown white guys shoot up or blow up our citizenry I guess that's OK to Trump and the rest of the GOP? But if a legal immigrant does it, totally different story?
Note to Trump, McConnell and Ryan: The victims are just as mangled and dead whether a white guy shoots them or a legal immigrant shoots them.
1
With all his tweeting in the last few days, the President was apparently too busy to go trick or treating. I had been hoping to see him all dressed up as an empty barrel.
1
Bret, you need to step back and look at the bigger picture. You live in a bubble. Yes there was a terrible terror attack in your neighborhood. And many people in your neck of the woods don't go to church or own guns. But across America there are hundreds of millions of guns and millions who read the bible every day. And there are daily occurrences of people who settle the score by bringing their guns to work, or to their ex-spouse's house or sit in a hotel room and fire at will at concert goers. These events also happen in someone's previously quiet, innocent neighborhood. And because the perpetrator wasn't an immigrant, it's not called terror. But I'm sure to those affected it certainly feels like it. So let's not candy coat it and make violence by Americans less outrageous , more politically acceptable. For one there are laws to be passed. For the other, nothing to be done. Let's call it what it all is: violence against other human beings by people who feel they have a legitimate reason to kill. Kind of like a child abuser is a predator. But a Hollywood mogul is a power broker. Or a misogynist becomes a president.
1
This was a despicable act that nobody can defend. However we must not forget that this terrorist attack was because we participate in the many civil wars in the Middle East. Why do we have to control the Middle East? The oil still?
1
Outstanding piece. Americans cannot let the terrorists win by being scared of living.
Every part of America is real America and each of us, Bret, me, and more than 300 million others is a real American.
We, many of us, welcome people from all over the world. Five of the 8 killed in Lower Manhattan came from somewhere else to experience real America.
More than 30 real Americans experience death by gunshot each day.
More than 90 real Americans experience death by opiod and related overdose each day.
If you want to make a claim to being not only a real American but also to being a good American you can show your concern with all those deaths by voting in 2018 for individuals who understand that these kinds of deaths, even the 8 in Lower Manhattan, can only be made less common by providing the public health programs far better than we now offer.
To provide these may not be possible as long as we have a president for whom the most foreign of all things is the concept "public health program".
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen - US SE
10
Osama bin Laden may be long dead, but I'm afraid his legacy still lives on. The world has indeed changed and only God can deliver us from all this terror.
Call me chicken if you must, but I, personally, never hang around a crowd anymore. In church, I sit away from the entrance door; at a café, I sit by the bathroom for easy docking; I never stand in a long line anymore. And when I must use the metro, I am very vigilant. What a life!
1
We lost our ever loving minds after 9-11. We spent trillions, millions died, democracy on the ropes. We could have waved our middle finger at the entire ME, minimized fossil fuel dependency, maximized renewables, modernized our grid, built thousands of schools and hospitals and still have money left over. Nah, let’s go to war, the generals would never lie.
1
Still preferring Whitman's Leaves of Grass America.
1
Mr Stephens, I once had the utmost respect for your intellect but that seems to have gone the way of your WSJ byline. You may think Donald Trump to be a less than perfect president. On that we agree. But how foolish of you to say that the diversity visa program does not contribute to the problem! The fact that there is no perfect way to keep out ALL terrorists is no excuse for not using every means at our disposal to keep them out. I, for one, will trade one Central Asian immigrant without skills who may not get in for one crazy man with a truck and hatred who does get in from coming here and mowing down my children on a bike path. You'd do your new NYT "reader/friends" a favor if you tried educating them, rather than trying to garner their liberal and foolish favor. Don't be fooled by the NYC liberal multicultural nonsense. Perhaps a visit to the WSJ newsroom would do you good.
This morning I had to scroll through 43 articles in the LA Times -- many about the Dodgers -- before the truck attack in New York appeared. Los Angeles is a liberal sanctuary city that is equally reviled by Trump's base. If our newspaper isn't covering the story with the prominence it deserves, I wonder how other cities are covering it -- or not.
I didn't realize that Bret lives in NYC -- it didn't automatically follow to me from being a columnist for the NYT (or the WSJ before that)
Tuesday I got out the door in Kew Gardens (Queens), rode the E subway to Penn Station, caught the Amtrak to Smallbany -- the back and forth of my life these days. So I wasn't in the city when the attack happened.
But Queens is the most diverse city (by itself it's 2.5 million) in America; more diverse than Manhattan. Everybody from everywhere lives in Queens, many of them muslim. We have a lot of immigrants, many don't speak very good english, but everybody mostly gets along.
Queens Blvd, the main drag through Queens, is the most lethal road for pedestrians killed by cars in New York State. In 2013 the NY Daily News said:
"Of 173 pedestrians killed last year in traffic accidents across the city, a whopping 46 deaths were recorded in the borough, including along notoriously dangerous Queens Blvd."
And it hasn't gotten better ... yet. According to MTA information:
"Forty-eight people were fatally struck by subways in 2016, marking the lowest year-end total in five years, ... according to MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz."
New York City is over 8 million. Sadly, NYC has its share of angry losers, but this guy wasn't even a New Yorker, he came from Jersey.
Trump never was a real New Yorker, what a cry-baby.
Be interesting to see some data to confirm the paragraph beginning "Most of the people who live or work nearby...."
Bret I am relieved that you and your family are OK. Your column today reeks of integrity and insight...the primacy of local experience and community connection over the obtuse ideology and rantings of your President. Stay strong and keep up your great work expressing the conservative counter-balance so important to NYT readers. I don't share many of your political views. Big deal. So what? Its your decency and thoughtfulness that I value. You test my own views and ideas.
1
A thoughtful piece, well written.
But I can't stop thinking of the current congress and President. And the role they play in giving our country the reputation that brings hatred out toward us.
1
The hatred felt by many towards America is to do with perceived arrogance coupled with iffy and intrusive foreign policy. The Trump administration hasn't exactly endeared the USA to the rest of the world but I don't think the general hate level has risen. Don't forget 9/11 was way before Trump!
"Determined fanatics will usually outwit the Department of Homeland Security’s games of whack-a-mole."
That's what NRA people say about guns. There's no point in banning them because determined criminals will be able to buy black-market guns.
"Diversity Visa Lottery" whoever thought up this piece of legislation needs to be applauded & honoured.Remarkably diversified.
There should be a clause in this type of Visa to "ADOPT" winners of such lotteries into the families of the Law Makers & their ardent supporters.
This will mitigate potential risk of innocents getting mowed on the side walk of NY.
There should also be a Visa program to facilitate entry into the US of surrendered ISIS soldiers.
5
"Few of us may go to church or own a gun, and hardly any of us voted for the president. But we are good friends to our neighbors, look out for their children and feel nothing but gratitude for the people who protect us. And we choose to live in a place that we know is a target for fanatics because fanatics will always target the things we prize most: openness, diversity, sky-high ambition and the belief that we are more than simply our racial or religious identities."
A wonderfully eloquent remark, and a true one--from a writer with whom I mostly disagree.
15
I actually wept as I read this. My son lives in NYC now and attends NYU. He loves the city and is truly jazzed by what it offers, but was dumfounded by the violence only a few blocks from where he was yesterday. Bret beautifully frames the situation in terms of what matters most, though, our shared humanity. This morning, my son boarded the L train in Bushwick and went to his classes. Life goes on; no terrorists are going to stop New York.
7
Thank you for such a well written piece. We need to step back and think about the horrific effect terrorist attacks have on the victims and their families. Too often we get caught up in the media coverage, the hype and the political rhetoric. It's time to drop the speculation about the perpetrator, his motives and the details of his links to terrorist organizations. It's time to think about the survivors, how the injured will put their lives back together and how the families of those who were killed with find the support and the resources to carry on with their lives.
1
We have become used to the horror in America, my native country. Not just the terrorism from a foreign influence but the home grown terrorism coming out of the barrels of legally purchased guns from your friendly neighborhood gun show!
When there was an attack in Paris, I felt no fear here in Provence, 400 miles away. My village neighbors, mostly expats from western European countries, were warm and uncommonly friendly even before the first terrorist attack.
After 14 years as an expat, I cannot imagine living anywhere else. One day recently I woke up and realized that what I was experiencing was actually warmth and love from my neighbors, an experience that was missing in my villages in Marin County California and the Big Island of Hawaii.
For those of you fellow Americans who are interested in starting a new life away from not only Trump but the entire zeitgeist of today's America, I encourage you to consider exploring a strikingly different lifestyle for the rest of your life in a community of your uniquely personal choice.
Moving here was the best decision of my life!
6
Michael Kittle, you write, "When there was an attack in Paris, I felt no fear here in Provence." Was that also true when there was an attack in Nice?
Don't get me wrong; I'm seriously considering getting out myself -- but it'd likely be to Uruguay or Chile (where they've already had their dictator). Valparaiso could easily pass for San Francisco (back in the day, before it became overcrowded, overpriced, and overwrought). Fortunately. I'm fairly fluent in Spanish -- but also plan on checking out Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.
It's starting to look like the entire Northern Hemisphere is toast.
I do not know the gun laws of New York City or the state of New York. It is possible that the laws in New York prevented this man from getting his hands on the type of guns that could have resulted in much greater carnage. He could have jumped out of the truck with an automatic weapon(s) and lots of high capacity magazines.
7
If he did have a "real" gun, most likely my son and his classmates who were all standing about 20 feet away in the PS89 schoolyard would be dead today, instead of just upset and traumatized from what they saw.
1
thank you, mr. stephens. this is the best column you have written since coming to the op-ed pages. I am glad you and your family are ok. And I am very glad that new Yorkers will not bow to terrorism. there is bravery in simply doing ordinary life in such times as we now live.
2
Thank you, Mr. Stephens. I rely on your honesty and integrity, as well as your critical thinking and, yes, real patriotism. And we have a different voting history. I couldn't help but notice the instincts on the right to react to terrorism at home as one defined by an affiliation with a violent distortion of Islam, even if the terrorist was American, to immediately limit immigration. The assumption is that immigrants (especially from certain countries) are not well vetted and that with stricter laws prohibiting immigration, we could stop these terrorist attacks at home. Yet, when we have a mass shooter (typically white male, American born) taking lives of innocents in public places, their instinct is to look at the lone wolf as an outlier and shrug off easy access to assault weapons and protest any attempts to legislate limiting easy access to weapons. The fear is real for all Americans and how we react says much about us. Many of us fear ourselves (as Americans) more than we fear the other.
6
Good essay from this columnist, whose previous writing I've not enjoyed at all. Thanks Mr. Stephens.
1
"Determined fanatics will usually outwit the Department of Homeland Security’s games of whack-a-mole. A heavy-handed immigration policy will never be an effective counterterrorism strategy."
From what I've read, the disaffected driver of the rented vehicle was not a "determined fanatic" when he entered our country. He became "radicalized" when he was unable to fulfill the dreams that brought him here. It may be that the driver of the vehicle never experienced the openness and diversity that makes our country a beacon of hope for immigrants... and it may be that the vitriol we are now hearing about "Muslim immigrants" contributed to his radicalization. Is it possible our "heavy-handed immigration policy" is backfiring?
3
I loved this piece. Thank you!
I haven't checked the history of the Peloponnesian Wars recorded by Thucydides, but my memory of it is that the Athenians withstood a good part of it without using their sense of civic and liberal mindedness. Our heartland where "real Americans" live and where mostly there have been no foreign terrorist attacks, has been quick to retreat into fear and rage and an inclination to believe every elected demagogue with his anti civil liberties prescriptions and will apparently gladly submit to dictatorial measures by its government in spite of their widely publicized allegiance to the Constitution and their support of gun rights for all which will supposedly protect us from the dictatorial government of the politicians they support. Do they not see the paradox in this thinking?
3
Grief for the pain of the victims and their families, first. Then comfort to you and your family - my blood went cold reading your account of your son coming home, your daughter reporting in safe. Praise for the strength and calm of the neighbors and first responders. The rest of America is watching while you pick up the pieces, punish the attacker, and move on. Pray that we learn from your example.
1
Αn aside: I've never understood the phrase 'there but for the grace of God'. Where is God's grace towards a group of tourists celebrating their friendship? Better to say 'there but for the grace of blind luck,' - whether you're a believer or not.
4
Stellan writes, "I've never understood the phrase 'there but for the grace of God'. Better to say 'there but for the grace of blind luck."
To a believer, God is present in luck. We're the ones who are blind.
When the author lived in Jerusalem, did he notice how effective the Israel border walls were in preventing illegal immigration? Those Israeli border defences have prevented hundreds upon hundreds of terrorist attacks throughout Israel. Why do U.S. citizens, and citizens in Europe, not deserve similar border security to that provided to Israeli citizens? If the author is so opposed to secure borders, why is he focusing upon criticizing the U.S. with its extremely weak and porous borders, rather than Israel, with its extremely strong and effective border controls?
2
The difference is that Israel's adversaries are concentrated immediately outside its borders. Neither Canada nor Mexico are threatening to wipe the US off the map.
2
There’s a HUGE difference between keeping Hispanics, who are looking for work and safety, out of the US and Israelis protecting their borders from people intent upon killing them.
1
The self-pity of Americans is truly the height of hypocrisy, painting themselves as victims and applauding their own resilience & "bravery."
I invite rational-thinking Americans, if there are any, to look for an honest answer to the question, "why is there so much of middle-eastern terrorism against us?"
Honest reflection would quite easily lead to this conclusion:
"People around the world, in particular, people of the middle-east, hate us because since 1945 - when we blithely took over world-hegemony from Europe - we looted and plundered whole swaths of peoples by putting up tin-pot dictators to aid us in our plunder - the dictators who brutally suppressed and murdered their own people; aided by our nudging and egging-on; using our scientifically designed new ways of torture to use on their people; robbing the weak and the poor of their life, livelihood and dignity. That's why all this terrorism is happening now"
When this country admits that truth, hopefully, healing of the world will begin.
2
A refreshing article when we are bombarded with hate, the question is - how do we stop this? This person was on the FBI watch list -,they received a warning about the Boston bombers - how do these things then happen without warning? The Las Vegas shooter was white and American - he had an arsenal but no motive. The first question was about a foreign influence. Time for Twitter and Facebook to block this rpaganda. The Russian ads during the election were clearly not home grown. But the buck rules and these kid billionaires are seemingly not interested in morals or curbing hate and anger.
As a live witness to the World Trade Center terror attack, I resent the ominous "terror has returned, be very afraid" tone being employed here.
These recent attacks have been more coincident with elections and drops in Republican poll numbers than anything else.
And if it turned out that a draft of this article was written before the attack, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
Yes we are a wonderful people and it is a wonderful thing to celebrate our wonderfulness. The trouble is, the people in the countries against whom we are waging our global war also think that their children are wonderful.
A really grown-up response would, besides expressions of relief, respond rationally and find a solution to this political problem of violence. If you wish to stop attacks against innocent American civilians, it might be wise to stop killing innocent Islamic civilians with bombs and drones in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Why does no one in America advocate peace?
The IRA terrorists killed many innocent Brits. The British Army killed more Irish. Both sides hated the other and wanted revenge. But not until they sat down and talk did the bombings and killings stop.
5
Ted Cruz considers people who vote for him to be the real America. New York would not qualify as "real" America since it rejected him.
If Ted Cruz had won New York, would he be saying it is not real America?
1
Trump's idea of extreme vetting will not work, because it is the children of Muslim migrants, not the migrants themselves, who usually murder. But for this very reason, the diversity lottery is an unsolvable danger, because you cannot vet people who have not even been born yet. Immigration should be limited to those who can make a contribution, financially, industrially, or technologically, to the country, or who are close relatives or spouses of those who arrived in America legally. Diversity alone is not enough.
Oh, please! Diversity gives us university professors, shop owners, and fruit pickers. The children of immigrants integrate into America with alacrity. When was the last time you thought a second- or third-generation Italian or Pole was unworthy of being in this country? Who is to determine which people are more valuable?
2
Ours is a schizophrenic world. We are shocked by the senselessness of terrorist acts killing a few in NYC or the death of 58 in Las Vegas by a gunman mad at who knows what because they are abnormal. We ignore the "normal" deaths from domestic violence, drug deals gone bad, preventable diseases going undetected and untreated not to mention the ravages of War, Famine, Pestilence and Death running amok around the world. Events in our city, our street and our home do affect us more but we need to cultivate the perspective which lets us see and address the whole picture, too.
I read in today’s Times that Saipov was a university-educated accountant when he immigrated. Wasn’t the Las Vegas shooter an accountant at some point too?
Perhaps Trump should consider banning accountants from entering the country.
6
NYC is a metropolis of 8 million people so the death of 8 people is a personal tragedy but statistically insignificant. A few weeks ago 58 people were killed in a domestic terrorism incident on the other side of the country and regrettably it's already largely forgotten. John Kerry was heavily criticized for it at the time but a few years ago he said terrorism was a nuisance and that's exactly what it is. One that modern society has to handle without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Without surrendering all norms of decent behavior because without allegiance to these basic norms and rationality in dealing with the problem the cure would become worse than the disease. We can't give up who we are just because some crazed fanatic in NYC or LV goes on a killing spree. This is what is so dangerous about the buffoon currently in the WH whose reaction to this incident was just a replay of all the worst aspects of Trumpism which divides and doesn't unite.
19
Thank you, Bret, but in this city we're New Yorkers first and Americans second. U.S. citizens are occupying two different civilizations now: terrorists strike cities like this one (they can't be bothered with flyover country), and yet most of OUR residents will continue to look favorably on immigration and on Muslims and on immigration by Muslims. It's mainly in America's (pardon the expression) "heartland" that fear, hatred, bigotry and cowardice win out. So keep your well wishes, America: we're still a sanctuary city whether you like it or not. And you can keep The Donald while you're at it: he was never one of ours.
92
No thanks, Stu, for keeping the wound open. It takes two (sides) to tango.
2
"New Yorkers first, Americans second." Sounds eerily like the logic that led Robert E Lee to decline leadership of the US Army and opt to lead the forces of his home state.
1
Re: your point that terrorists "can't be bothered with flyover country," see the following:
Columbus, Ohio, Nov. 2016, Islamist vehicular attack at Ohio State, 11 injured
St. Cloud, Minnesota, Sep. 2016, Islamist knife attack at mall shopping center, 10 injured
Columbus, Ohio, Feb. 2016, Islamist machete attack in restaurant, 4 injured
Chattanooga, Tennessee, July, 2015, Islamist gunman kills 5, injured 2, at multiple locations
Garland, Texas, May 2015, Islamist shooting attack at conference, 1 injured
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Sep. 2014, Islamist knife attack at factory, 1 dead
It seems to me you are substituting anti-immigrant prejudice with anti-"heartland" prejudice. I'm a Democratic voter, as are many non-coastal residents, so I'll try not to take offense at your obvious bias. But I suggest that as a country we need to do more to help the 50% of Americans who couldn't come up with $400 in an emergency, many of whom are rural and small town residents, regain the modest prosperity their parents possessed. If we did that, we might be surprised at how much anger melted away. And, I hate to tell you this, but a joke of a president born in New York is a New Yorker, whether you want to claim him or not.
1
This was a good article, and it would be nice if people read carefully and kept everything in context. Mr. Stephens captured the essence of "real America," meaning Americans at their best when responding to tragic situations, Americans caring for their neighbors, and carrying on with living.
38
I am utterly certain that no plans to weed out our home grown terrorists by selective screening in a visa program will do any good at all.
Our home grown terrorists become jihadists after they get here. Often they are 2nd generation immigrants of parents whose goal is to become and remain loyal US citizens. What happens? The cultural gap from origins in a relatively poor Muslim country and living in the secular US surrounded by Jews, Christians and non-religious folks as well as some Muslims is simply intolerable for a tiny minority. They select jihad, and become murderers.
Our own population is going to have to start paying attention. Particularly, the responsibilities must fall on the immigrant communities where the jihadists live and the hatred originates and is nurtured. Neighbors who are also immigrants "understand" the motivation and say nothing. The overwhelming majority of Muslims are revolted at the idea of informing on "exceptionally devout young Muslims." Unfortunately, a small minority of them are the source of home grown terror, not only in the US but in Western Europe.
20
In truth, most of our 'homegrown terrorists' are like the 60 year old white male, armed to the teeth, who shot hundreds in Las Vegas. They are rootless, quite known to their friends and neighbors as a bit unusual and probe to violent outbursts and strange behavior.
So whom should we blame for failing to warn authorities and prevent their acts of violence? And is a massacre acceptable if it is committed with no discernible ideological motivation, but somehow more reprehensible if committed by someone pathologically devoted to an extremist cult?
No. Your solution is no solution at all. 'Terrorism' is not 'Muslim' and it is not 'immigrant.' Terrorism is endemic to our culture of anger, violence and guns, and it comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, religions and motivations. Scapegoating won't end it, or even significantly limit it.
Stephens must feel tremendously vulnerable and relieved at the same time having his home so close to the scene of the crimes. Yet, he expresses the determination to enjoy the life he lives and not to be dismayed by any fear that he has. It's this kind of courage that people seem to find that makes efforts to terrorize big populations of people in cities a lot less successful than the perpetrators imagine.
23
... and do nothing. And the next time will come, and more will die, and you'll have "courage" and carry on.... and do nothing. And the next time will come, and more will die, and you'll have "courage" and carry on.... and do nothing. And the next time will come, and more will die, and you'll have "courage" and carry on.... and do nothing. It's called "surrender".
I love NY but NY is not exclusively real America. every single inch of the American landscape in real America in some way or the other. New Yorkers would like to think NY city is the center of the Universe. What makes NY a global city is the head quarters of the UN is in NY and the wall street and that makes it different from every other place in the USA. In this century, NY city is unique because of 911 and the loss of the world trade center buildings and their replacement with the 911 memorial building. New York is truly a melting pot and that sets it apart from most of the USA. I defer with Bret Stepens when he says a heavy-handed immigration policy will never be an effective counter terrorism strategy. A smart merit based immigration policy will certainly be an effective strategy worth a try.
10
The United States is a big place. In the big cities, the living together of people from all places in the country and the world produces a live and let live attitude and a tacit acceptance of people with different beliefs and convictions, a preference to trust strangers until they disappoint, and a security about ones well being despite knowing few of the people about one. It is in the smaller communities where people know a lot more of the people with who they live and most of the strangers share their beliefs and convictions that the mistrust towards those who are different is the common react that the fear of immigrates, especially those that they are unlikely to meet, is the most prevalent. Yet, when these people meet and get to know strangers, they are very hospitable and amicable towards them.
All people are very much alike and Americans have had an easier time of accepting strangers than citizens of most other lands. That is probably why we are more likely to be mistreated by native born Americans than by immigrants or naturalized Americans.
15
He's not saying it's exclusively real America. He's saying it's just as real America as the rest of the country.
Quite a few of the people who went to work with ISIS in Syria were actually recruited because of their education and skills. ISIS hired doctors, teachers, nurses, secretaries, administrators, etc. I read that a large number of documents found at the headquarters of one of the ISIS "government" buildings had thousands of job applications. Apparantely, when people filled out their applications, the section where they could write about why they wanted the job rarely said "I am Muslim, and want to support the cause of ISIS". People wrote things like -- I want a job which will give me upward mobility. Or, I want to work in an environment where I will be respected for my talents. Perhaps one of the issues for muslims who are US citizens through birth or because they immigrated with parents is that they are subjected to overt rascism because of their religion. They may feel they will always be second class in the eyes of America which also has had no problem engaging in wars in many Muslim countries. And that realization might be what makes them snap.
It was another beautiful sunny day 17 years, ago, when my 14 year old was a 10th grader at Stuyvesant High School. Like many others, I watched on TV, paralyzed with disbelief and fear, as a scene of horrors unfolded just a few short blocks from his school.
A fellow Stuy mom called. We watched TV "together" and as the first tower collapsed, she was screaming, sobbing, "Can they jump into the river and swim to New Jersey? What if the other tower falls onto the school?" And then we saw that infamous mushroom cloud of debris roll down West Street and engulf the school building, which momentarily disappeared.
No phones, no subways, no buses. No communication at all. The feeling is beyond sickening when your child is in danger and there isn't a damn thing you can do. Four hours later he made it home, walking, along side thousands of other New Yorkers, the many miles from lower Manhattan. Besides the day he was born, I have never felt such joy and relief to hold him in my arms.
Others were not so lucky, I know I am blessed. And like a strong New Yorker, I have moved on. But I am not the same. There will always be life before - and life after 9/11.
Yesterday, eight souls were lost and many sustained serious injury. We feel their pain, but we move on because we must - but we are not the same.
And still asking, 17 years later, "For what?"
51
FJM, your story moved me. On that awful day I was a teacher in a school in Elmhurst, Queens. We saw the towers attacked from our top floor and watched them burn and collapse.. My brother was a fireman at the time. I called my mother to let her know what had just happened that early September morning. I didn't know if my brother was on duty at the time. He was not, but he went there to rescue his colleagues who could not be rescued. My mother always said this was the worst day of her life because she thought my brother would die. So, no, liberals, leftists, multi-culturalists, we do not need more immigrants in this country when even just one or ten or 100 or 1,000 of them could be terrorists or potential terrorists.
I am humbled by your post. Chin up. Eyes forward. Always and only forward.
Thanks Bret. Especially poignant to those of us who grew up around this city and deeply love all it represents and stands for.
8
We’re all relieved that Bret’s children were among those who could say “there but for the grace of God …”; and fervently wish there had been none who had been denied that grace. It happened in southern Manhattan, but the outrage, like all of them, struck all of America, all of us.
Profound condolences to the families and friends of the eight who were murdered, and to all affected by the many injuries.
16
Thank you for this column.
11
At a risk of drawing ire of the leftist Democratic readers of NYT, I humbly submit that the latest terrorist attack with a truck in Lower Manhattan, as well as such earlier attacks in Berlin, London, and Nice, might have been stopped early, if the citizens carried weapons and were well trained in their use.
3
The trained and valiant officer took 9 shots before the suspect fell with 1 bullet in his abdomen. Had 1% of the 100 people nearby shot also, whom would he have been hit and missed? That's 18 shots.
Double that number to 2 shooters besides the officer. 27 shots. Go all out: everybody shoots. 900 shots ring out as people mistake each other for the perp or his twin. Good hunting...oops.
Now, you think Sharpshooter Dan The Weekend Range Shooter would have drawn his gun from his holster, slipped the safety off, aimed, and, miracle of miracles, hit the perp driving 60 mph through the crowds by the bike path? Or outside his truck as he ran? Remember, it took the officer 9 tries.
The Brooklyn Bridge is nearby. I'm selling it to the naïve.
Gimme an offer.
81
But those fake guns the assassin brandished would have doubtlessly been real and deadly were the gun laws in NJ and NY not so strict.
36
Why not? It did wonders in Vegas
25
Thank you for the thoughtful and uplifting column.
10
It's interesting that hours after an attack, families went trick or treating in the godless, elitist, not-real America of New York City while I had a grand total of three trick or treaters last night in my lily white, almost rural, super safe neighborhood of "real Americans." A steady diet of Faux News does that to a person. My neighbors seem to be so terrified of each other that no one interacts anymore. Also yesterday, a rural friend posted a video where city kids went to farms. The comments were so condescending about how stupid city dwellers are and the dog whistle racism was undeniable. The crazy and hatred goes both ways.
36
This is how adults think and feel. Or should. The last two paragraphs are especially sweet.
10
“I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this!”
Hey Prez. Did you ever think that you could might apply the Extreme Vetting Program to selecting the great people for your campaign like Manafort and Papadopoulis, or for your administration like General Flynn and Tom Price.
"Senator Chuck Schumer helping to import Europes problems" said Col.Tony Shaffer. We will stop this craziness!
Trump’s next tweet should be: Who knew that Uzbekistan was not in Europe.
25
This NYC 'real American' wants to feel safe. Just like all the other 300+ millions across our great land. My/Our government can help to make us all safer from indiscriminate death.
I would ask my President to work towards that goal. It doesn't matter where innocent people are killed in New York City or Las Vegas, in BOTH horrible situations government can act to make our lives safer. Mr. President, you seem more than willing to make one situation less likely but have no interest, apparently, in doing anything to make innocent people enjoying a concert safer.
There are things you can do. Why not?
We all want to be safer. Real America from 'sea to shining sea'.
3
I want to feel freedom first, not safety.
And if I did want safety, it would first be safety from the environmental toxins and contaminants that Trump and his henchmen are releasing into our lives by deregulating companies that poison our air, food, and water. That is my idea of true terrorism and indiscriminate death! The Trump administration is actively placing us in greater danger through their willing destruction of our planet and our food supply. Think of the innocent people, including children, who will be damaged and die by their handiwork, while they distract us by fostering anger and violence among Americans, using racism and hate.
1
What most people don't realize about much of New York is that it's a patchwork of neighborhoods, of people who sometimes reside their entire lives in just one borough, like my cousin in Brooklyn. Some never even leave their neighborhood to try living somewhere else.
Bret lives in such a neighborhood, maybe more upscale than most, but less than some. The area down there has changed over the decades. 45 years ago, my dad and his brother closed their small manufacturing business there, right one West Street. The building's still there, occupied, and faces west, and the terrorist drove his rental truck south past it till he hit the bus at Chambers Street. I was there many, many times as a child when the West Side Highway was still elevated over West Street down to the Battery.
I've heard many people say a terrorist by definition has a political agenda. I disagree. A terrorist seeks to strike terror in the hearts of ordinary citizens that he or she could randomly kill or hurt you or your family and you have no knowledge or ability to prevent it other than pure luck.
Whether the terror is as precisely defined as it was by Nicolai Lenin and
Nathan Bedford Forrest, for a precise purpose and goal, or just to make people afraid as does ISIS, or to start a race war, as was Dylann Roof's goal, or even the unknown purpose of Stephen Paddock in Las Vegas, they ALL sought to terrify their victims, and, in that, succeeded.
But New York responded by going ahead with Halloween!
11
"more upscale than most" -- that's gotta be the understatement of all time.
99.9% of Americans can never DREAM of living where Bret and his family live.
While I’m deeply saddened by the loss of life in Manhattan, this article only serves to reinforce petty, cultural biases. Every attack that takes American lives is an attack on the “real” America.
5
I think actually that the article was making the same point that you make: that every place in America is a real America, even a place like Manhattan, which most of the country thinks of as decidedly NOT the real America. I don't think Bret was saying that Manhattan was MORE real than the rest of America. He was saying only that Manhattan was, despite appearances to the contrary, as real as the places that some people say are the real America.
But the Trumpists, the alt-right, the neo-cons and the neo-confederates think the majority of "real" Americans aren't really Americans at all.
My sibling, a life-time dweller of New York, writes of a 'chill' in the air. After picking up the laundry, he heard ambulances and the police in the background, a man had shot his girlfriend and killed himself.
New York is getting over the terror incident, he added, while 'normal' violence continues, Alas. Stay away from ambulances and madmen, I reply, and walk steadily to the voting polls next Tuesday this November.
Violence is on the rise and so is Terrorism. Panic. Perhaps, Mr. Stephens, you remember when there was an explosion in Mid-Town caused by a heating company, panic followed fright and a woman died in the street of a heart attack. Grand Central Terminal was closed off.
Not a single friend mentioned the terror attack today. Instead they sent photos of Halloween celebrants last eve. After reading 'The Lottery' by Shirley Jackson, a short-story published by the New Yorker in 1948, she received death threats and Canada placed a ban on her writings.
How could this be, I asked my friend and historian, Friedlander, recently. The Public knew by then of the concentration camps after the War, so I fail to understand this uproar.
'Understand', he replied, that the human mind is not able to take in the magnitude of such systematic horror when a mass atrocity takes place. It is more likely to relate to the plight of the individual.
Listening to children at play last eve in the garden, followed by silence. The News came in, but New York City Unites.
3
I am sorry to hear that your children experienced this.
Sad for anyone, but especially children.
7
More intense and, sad to say, intrusive surveillance of Moslem immigrants is not a whack-a-mole enterprise, it is a necessary step in maintaining security and discovering terrorist wannabes. Government's first priority is to protect its citizens.
6
Name one actual terrorist incident that "intrusive surveillance of Moslem immigrants" would have prevented. A phony "cure" can be worse than the disease -- or even, part of the disease itself.
How intrusive does it need to be? Do extreme Christian groups required intrusive surveillance also?
1
Our government's first duty is to uphold the Constitution, which prohibirs discrimination against the members of a particular religion.
I'm really shocked about this 'copy cat' terrorist attack. It was just a few weeks ago that a home-grown terrorist ran down a crowd in Charleston, but only killed 1 person. In both cases, an "act of terrorism with a vehicle". One terrorist was a legal resident immigrant, espousing "radical Islamic terrorism" ideology. The other terrorist is a home-grown American, a red-white-and blue (but mostly all white!) "white supremacist". Nothing supreme about them, IMO. I don't doubt that if he had been able to kill 8 instead of 1 he would have. Trump tweets about "Gitmo" for this new terrorist, but not a word about sending our "white supremacist" friend to Gitmo...and what about the Constitution?
Of course neither of these small-time terrorists has come close to the recent Las Vegas terrorist, whose little domestic terrorism gun violence mass killing murdered over 7x as many people. Has Trump called that "terrorism" yet?
I'm not going to call for "enhanced driver testing" because there is apparently no need for better gun laws after Las Vegas, so there certainly can't be any need for stronger driving laws to control terrorism with automobiles.
But we must ask ourselves what's really driving our discussion of "terrorism" when gun violence, and "white supremacists" using autos, don't get the same conservative punditry outrage and Trump tweets as a deranged follower of Islam.
12
I’m really shocked by people using this attack to make some strained point about racism. I have asked myself what’s driving this discussion of terrorism and my answer is, fear of terrorists.
The Charlottesville murder is an outrage and he should get the death penalty. But it occurred during a riot. It is far different from a guy planning a mass murder in the name of religion, directly related to numerous similar attacks happening all over the world.
1
What a terrible title for an op-ed piece:
A terrorist attack in "real" America? What can Bret Stephens mean?
Were not the Twin Towers full of real Americans, who were helped by real firefighters and police officers? I knew four people who died there, and all of them were very real.
Or perhaps other terrorist attacks in other parts of America -- on Queens streets when police officers are targeted by Muslim converts -- at OB/GYN clinics manned by real nurses giving mammograms to real women -- at military recruiting stations -- at any place where a man with a political agenda wants to instill fear -- do not take place against real people.
Just because a subset of New Yorkers and our guests from other lands became victims this time -- and believe me, I have also walked along that bike path and marveled how different it is from the old West Side Highway I knew as a child -- just because Mr. Stephens crosses the bike path every day -- doesn't make it more real. Just, perhaps, more real to him. And that's really nothing to write about.
8
I wonder what Trump's reaction would have been if the terrorist had been Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was an American, a Christian, and had served his country.
It's sad that we have a president and an administration that is so inept it can't even respond in a decent way to a terrorist attack that was not nearly has bad as it could have been. Trump spewed blame and threats but little else. But when the center of the world is oneself it's hard to empathize with another's experience. The terrorist will be dealt with. But what are we going to do about the incompetent in the White House?
24
We already know. Look at how he responded to Las Vegas and Charlottesville. White men are not responsible for anything.
1
I really liked the ending, and the myriad of sentiments in this painstakingly sincere essay. Thanks, Bret, for a meaningful summary of that day.
7
I have not, regrettably, ever lived in NYC. But I find the people there immensely friendly and nice. Every time I’m there, I feel welcomed warmly; and people there make me feel like I fit in. Thanks for this column.
11
Those criminals master mind tried to intimidate us, New Yorker but they failed. It is really painful to stay in a city where you have to fear for your lives every single day and have to worry about your loved ones when they go out. This really should stop now.
I do not know what we have to do because people like us, voters are in desperate situations when these politicians play this dirty game for their personal agenda and gain. Let save our city.
7
This column sounds like a tribute to rich white New Yorkers like himself. That is not the real world or the real New York. How about some love for the millions of immigrants legal and otherwise that have a target put on their heads by the GOP or the millions of renters who may be penalized by his party's new tax cut bill?
21
This column IS at tribute to rich, white NewYorkers like Bret.
It is a form of humble-bragging -- now we can see HOW rich he is, and how he can live in the poshest of neighborhoods.
Interesting piece - yet it is the case that the chances of anyone being killed by, for example, a drunk driver or someone they know, is far greater than any terrorist attack. Yes, deaths from terrorist acts are in your face and all over the media, but dying (unnatural deaths) is overwhelmingly a prosaic and humdrum event - who reports deaths amongst gangbangers, carnage wrought by drunk drivers, accidental deaths in gun-owing households, domestic violence, or industrial accidents . . .
6
I am sympathetic to your experience and fears. But are you actually a writer for the Wall St. Journal? Are you not paid to think and analyze before you write? If you managed a company or budget by the kind of "gut feelings" in this article it would probably go bankrupt.
How about a thoughtful analysis of actual danger? In the past 15 years roughly 100 Americans have been killed domestically by terrorists. In the same period over 450,000 have been killed in car crashes. The chances of your kids dying in a car accident are more than 1,000 times that of dying from terrorists. In fact, roughly 1 in 400 Americans dies in a car crash. THAT is a big number, terrorism is a TINY number! Terrorists want to unreasonably scare you, and unfortunately seem to be a mark. As someone famous for teaching science to non-science major university students, articles like your make me sad, though they give my students an excellent example of how the lack of science and math ability affects people's decision making
Approximately 3,000 high school students attempt suicide EVERY DAY! That is also thousands and thousands of times the actual risk to your kids.
Be a wise parent, not just an emotional one. Comfort your kids, and then explain to them that the chances of being hit by lightning are very very small - and the chances of being killed by a terrorist are 10 times LESS than being struck by lightning! Teach the significant risks of drinking and texting and driving, not terror.
9
The levels of actual versus perceived risk you highlight are essentially correct. However, if you added in the number of Americans killed on 9/11, your number of deaths attributable to domestic terrorism would be much higher. In the other hand, the number of Americans killed by the tobacco and fast industries, would skew the numbers back to your original thesis.
3
"And we choose to live in a place that we know is a target for fanatics because fanatics will always target the things we prize most: openness, diversity, sky-high ambition and the belief that we are more than simply our racial or religious identities."
Save the hypocrisy for your friends, neighbors and colleagues.
Your public schools are among the most racially segregated in the country.
Start a citywide public school desegregation program (ratios of student demographic groups similar from school to school) then look at the impact that has on your school system. Remember, no price is too high to pay for a diverse world which includes your school system.
And please do come back and write about how all that turns out.
6
Why confine desegregation programs to schools? Why not housing as well? Perhaps appropriate racial ratios for all neighborhoods? Such could be extended to incomes. A gradual program of income adjustment to equalize such across racial lines. One could envision some sort of master spread sheet encompassing education, residential neighborhood, income that could be used to track and forecast equalization programs across racial lines. Such could be done not precipitously, but rather at a gradual pace under the direction of panels of disinterested experts.
1
@BD: I'm sure the NY Times' OP-ED writers would fully agree - just as long as it applied only to flyover country.
Jp: I will listen to the pundits here at the NYC, when they reveal what the racial balances are in the schools THEIR OWN KIDS attend (public or private) and if they have no kids (or kids grown up)....then what the racial balances of the local schools are that any children of theirs WOULD attend.
NYC provably has the most segregated schools in the US, as well as some of the most segregated neighborhoods. Yet it is lily white lefties in NYC who pontificate to Americans all over the US about how we should live, and what we should think and who we should vote for!
We live in a violent, savage country that is a legacy of our gunslinger and slave holding history, that's only marginally civilized; the proof is in the statistics on the violence that occurs in our society day in, week in, year in, decade in, decade out. Another day, another mass killing in the USA. Our society has been destabilized by our Post-Eisenhower embrace of violence, not peace, why more Americans have been killed by their fellow Americans since 1970 than in all our wars both foreign and civil.
America should turn its back on violence and embrace peace, the 1960s protesters and hippies were right, not the Vietnam warmongers and Bull Connors of the USA. Let's embrace peace without the drugs and guns, the daily violence is a national medical and psychological crisis up there with car accidents and medical ailments like cancer.
We have a POTUS who mocked the disabled and talked about shooting Americans on our streets and not losing voters, with toadies who describe slavery as a compromise issue?
America's problems are clearly much larger than one extremist loon driving his car intentionally down a bike path. Ask the folks who attended that country music concert in Vegas or attended Church one day in Charleston a couple years ago etc. It's the embrace of violence, not peace, that terrorizes America at home and abroad. Hollywood and the larger media both propagandize and profit from peddling violence, and the American public suffers the malignant consequences.
16
The 'real' world IS New York City-- each neighborhood a piece of the hologram containing the impossible whole but unique unto itself.
They can hurt us, make us cry but they will never derail us or make us leave. Not ever.
The same narrowness we see in the Ted Cruz's and Donald Trumps is what we see in the terrorists. We have no patience for it and we are not afraid of it except as a motive to mobilize our considerable resources and overcome it.
What appeals in the places where everyone worships in the same church has no appeal to us. We accept multitudes and know how to get along with someone who speaks a different language or worships a different god. That is our commonality and our humanity--an ability to accept, not judge and allow each other the space to be in a place where space is precious. This commonality allows Palestinian shopkeepers and Israeli merchants to live peacefully next to each other on Atlantic Avenue.
It allows all 8 or 9 million of us to pull together when we need to and defeat any enemy,
7
I lived in Brooklyn and was born in Westchester. I agree with everything you say. I just want you to know that a person can agree with everything you say-and still go to church.
1
Mr. Stephens thanks for reminding us that we should not be paralyzed by fear after a terrorist attack. I agree if most of us stay at home in fear the terrorists would have won.
I am also hoping that terrorist attacks do not become the new normal in America. With all due respect your time spent in Jerusalem during the Intifada may have minimized your fears.
Nonetheless America is not the Middle East and we should fight as hard as we can to stop terrorism by Jihadists and other poisonous extremists alike.
2
it is a wonderful neighborhood Bret. Apparently we are neighbors and I am happy that
is the case. You must change your views on the environment which pose a bigger threat
to our lives in Tribeca than any Usbeki.
Start using your platform to advocate for policies that fight global warming.
7
My kids also learned to ride in that area and now, ten or fifteen years later, the older is a sophomore at Stuyvesant (still bragging and slipping it into any conversation I can). That still hasn't changed my view that we are substantially responsible for most of the terrorism, domestic and foreign, visited on the world in the last twenty years or so. And of course with every new drone strike in the Middle East, and every "training" mission in Africa and elsewhere, we increase their numbers.
This started with our exploitation of Middle East oil over a hundred years ago, and was boosted when we overthrew the elected socialist government in Iran over sixty years ago. And it continued when we trained the Afghans in terrorism to be used against the Russians. When we get out of their way, maybe they'll get out of ours, giving them enough time of course, seeing as we started it all.
7
Thank you for almost a pure example of a selective perspective on history to support a delusional self-hatred for your country.
No mention of the age-old Sunni/Shia schism or the Muslim/Hindu conflicts that have accounted for the overwhelming preponderance of carnage experienced by Muslims.
No mention of the European empires of the 19th and 20th Centuries that subjugated people and drew boundaries in the Middle East and Africa which still are sources of resentments and conflicts in those areas.
I appreciate your humane response to an unspeakable crime. You see your neighbors as neighbors. It's sad that most people will see, not neighbors, not fellow humans, but "issues" and talking points.
5
Thank you for expressing exactly how I felt yesterday and continue to feel today. I live 2 blocks from the horrifying scene of the truck crash, the exact spot that I begin my morning run and where I begin my walk with my dog. Never thought that living in NYC and 6 blocks from WTC meant terror. This IS a real neighborhood.
4
I don't know what to say to all the people who lost family and friends to a stroke of random malevolence which they did not deserve. I don't know what to say to people like Mr. Stephens who wanted to be assured that his children were safe, and then be able to assure them they were safe, because not being safe was too close, too real, too present to gloss over. I definitely don't know what to tell children.
I do know that bloviating and posturing and politicizing and bellowing and ranting won't do anything for anybody. But we will bloviate and posture and bellow and rant. Until the next time.
So what I will say is I wish everyone affected peace. I wish them comfort in their grief and fear. I wish them a measure of a chance at serenity eventually. Because peace, comfort, serenity are the anti-terror and maybe the only way to fight it.
6
Thank you for these thoughtful words. I too live in the neighborhood, two blocks from where three of the cyclists were killed. I bike on that path several times a week, often in the afternoon. That could easily have been me, and it's surreal to see how the national news and our politicians respond to a tragedy in your own back yard. Rather than coming together, as our neighborhood has, Trump immediately seeks to divide. His crass response, to call it a "Chuck Schumer Beauty," sickens me. There's nothing beautiful about it, and there's nothing ironic about it either. There is absolutely no excuse for using tragic deaths for a crass tweet to score a cheap talking point.
Like Stephens, I was proud to see families out trick or treating, showing that we will not be defined by one man's sick acts. I thank all the first responders for their courage and daily hard work keeping us safe, and I am proud of our city of "strivers" who work hard, put up with all that it takes to live in NYC, and show human decency in the face daily countless petty indignities and, on a day like yesterday, the occasional tragedy.
7
Who was Sayfullo Saipov and what was his grievance? Was this a suicide attempt? And if not what would possess him to surrender his life and family to commit an act of murderous terrorism? Despite the irrelevant, boiier plate, banal and self serving comments by Governor Cuomo and Mayor De Blasio (They would do well to read and listen to the authenticity and emotional truths in New Orlean's Mayor Landrieu's speeches and remarks to the press), defeating terrorism involves understanding the culture which spawned the grievance and the military weakness that led to terrorism. Defeating ISIS militarily will not defeat ISIS. After all they have about 40,000 fighters, no navy and no air force and no real artillery. What they do have is a potent message and cyber space making the war against ISIS a war for the hearts and minds of young people now and those to come in future generations through the internet via social media. e-mail, texting and whatever new technology arrives. This is the war we are losing. And this is a war that our foreign policy helped to create.
4
Yes, I believe you are right about this. If we could come to understand why a significant number of Muslims around the world turn towards this path of martyrdom -- why this is even considered to be a path at all -- would be the one thing that would lead to real change. Just battening down the hatches to keep "us" safe, while a natural emotional response (I feel it too), is not going to end the violence; and if it happens in Afghanistan or Uzbekistan or Iran or Iraq, it is eventually going to happen here as well. More than ever, as Tom Friedman said a long time ago, the world is flat, and there is really no separate "here" and "there."
I appreciate your thoughts though I bristle at one: " though we may not go to church" inappropriately and unfairly uses Christians as a trope for the sect of fear mongering, gun loving people whose values are orthogonal to those prized by New Yorkers. It was a subtle and nuanced slight, almost as if the result of some implicit bias or perhaps an overgeneralization of a broad group based on the inferences made about the political characterization of evangelicals. Nevertheless, it warrants examination and was an unfortunate undermining to an otherwise thoughtful reflection.
2
No, it was not an insult. It was a remark, a consideration -- and a reflection.
I knew exactly what he meant. One of his finest essays ever.
3
As long as we the taxpayers acquiesce to being the worlds largest exporter of arms and armies and with less and less interest in distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants at the receiving end of them we will have an ethical burden to temper our shock and surprise when a small fraction of that violence touches us or our neighbors. a child or civilian maimed or murdered by state sponsored terror has the same value and deserves the same compassion regardless of where on the globe they happen to be.
5
Really, and how about when climate change lets the Hudson river down your street , Bret. Will that be a turning point for you, but not until then? I find it ridiculous that a WSJ op-ed writer has suddenly seen god because there is death on his street. Many of us have the ability to empathize from current events, and to understand science and history - you should try it sometimes, Bret.
23
Grace,
I didn't read Stephens in the WSJ, but I've read him since he joined NYT, and I've become a fan. What does global warming have to do with yesterday's tragedy?
My lord. Must we always throw rocks, no matter what?
4
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304017404575165573845958914
Sorry, my subscription to WSJ has lapsed, and there is a paywall. The article you link to, however, seems to be about global warming. I don't see what Mr. Stephens' opinions on global warming have to do with this terrorist attack. It would be helpful if you could explain.
It is possible in this world to agree with folks on some things and disagree with them on other things and still see value in what a person says.
I live down the street from the end point of the carnage and my wife, who leaves around 3:30 to pick our son up from pre-school each day, narrowly missed potentially being a casualty in the attack. Our son's pre-school was on lockdown for an hour as a result of the event. Nevertheless, most of the kids and parents at the pre-school still went trick-or-treating in Tribeca (which borders where the attack occurred) shortly after leaving pre-school and managed to make the best out of an otherwise grim situation. On the one hand, following such a tragedy, it might seem like you should stay inside despairing or alternately shaking in fear and rage. On the other hand, in some ways, there's no better refutation of such violence than to see most locals moving immediately on with their lives. Certainly if I were a terrorist, or someone who hates America, the West, capitalism, or what have you and celebrates terrorism, I would have been pretty disheartened by the response of the Tribeca and North Battery Park City residents who seemed to, to the greatest extent possible, behave as though it were a normal Halloween.
15
Terrorism is about creating fear. I love the fact that the trick or treating went on as scheduled. Doing so demonstrated that New Yorkers were not going to allow fear to impact their daily lives. We saw the same thing in Europe after similar tragedies.
But refusing to succumb to fear doesn't mean ignoring reality. Steps need to be taken to prevent vehicles from accessing pedestrian areas. Such security measures may be costly but they are necessary to prevent unnecessary deaths.
13
Bret senses something real; it's about time.
11
Terrorism? not by my definition. He was just another Adam Lanza or ...whatever the name of that man in Las Vegas last month- except those two were Caucasians, so they were not described as terrorists, but mentally ill. All these murderers are mentally ill people with unfettered access to deadly weapons, nothing more. If this had been real terrorism (as encouraged by our "friends" the Saudis), he would have had real guns, would have driven a bigger vehicle, and would have waited a few more hours until the Halloween parade.
The issue is not imaginary "radical Islamic terrorism", it's identifying and intervening with the obviously mentally ill.
21
I feel like our society right now is putting too much emphasis on whether an event is "terrorism" or not. Using that label only adds to fear and anger, which is exactly what any terrorist would want. And does it really matter whether a horrible killing is motivated by terror or not? It seems to me it only matters in that one event could be linked to a greater group, and help law enforcement find conspirators etc. Our goal as a society should be to decrease violence. If decreasing guns accomplishes that, then let's do it. If there's some way to discern potential violence among the mentally ill (which I've read is extremely difficult even for professionals to predict), then let's do it. If the violence is related to ISIS or Al Queda, then there's a much more complicated set of options, but we do have options. We don't need to be afraid.
4
Best thing you've ever written, and thank you for this community-minded piece.
Truly. Thank you.
--A Stuyvesant HS teacher
77
Thanks for a good column!
9
trumps heartless remarks "seemed" remote feckless and wretched because those three words are accurate descriptors of this sham of a president. What he says has no meaning and the sooner the smartest among us acknowledge this, the better our psyches will be. The more determined we will be to get rid of him.
15
Bravo for going Trick-or Treating!!
11
As someone who lives in real real America, I appreciate your sentiments, Brent.
6
Bret Stephens lives in the real America. It just so happens that the people that
live here DESPISE Trump.
9
I really dislike people projecting themselves as victims when they are not. We have a better chase to be killed by a motorized delivery bike than a terrorist. But America is now a victim state. We used to be strong.
6
Until it happens directly to you or someone you know, you are distanced from this religiousity. Same with just about every crime. And once it does knock at your door in your neighborhood, work place or where ever, it becomes VERY real.
There are many, many people and their families/friends who are still suffering terribly from 9/11, Boston Marathon, Pulse, San Bernadino, et al, who are mostly unknown or invisible.
We don't hear much about their constant pain. Never forget. Never.
12
Well said. A BPC neighbor
4
Thank you and very grateful for your writing.
7
I've lived in New York City for over 30 years. I also worked for many years in TriBeCa, where this attack took place. I like New York and I like TriBeCa, but I would hardly call TriBeCa "real America." It is perhaps the most expensive neighborhood in an expensive city, with one-bedroom apartments regularly selling for well into seven figures, hardly the thick part of the curve. Let's maintain just a little perspective, shall we?
23
What's unreal about high real estate prices? Your notion of reality is too narrow and rather odd.
Perhaps that is why the terrorist choose it -- because he was clearly angry about his own diminished economic prospects -- he was lashing out at "rich white Westerners"?
Fabulous. Can't thank Bret enough.
8
Jim Jones, David Koresh, Tim McVeigh, Randy Weaver, Eric Rudolph, Eric Frein, Dylann Roof, David Duke, Richard Spencer and Cliven Bundy are what most American terrorists look like in real America. Or as Donald Trump calls them some fine people on both sides.
Of the 33,000 Americans who die from gunshot every year about 2/3rds are suicides and 80% are white men. Of the 1/3rd gun shot homicides in 95% of the cases the killers and victims are of the same color aka race. Mass shootings are 1% of all shootings.
Mr. Stephens has no compassion nor concern for black kids being terrorized by cops and thugs throughout America. Mr. Stephens does not care about Palestinian kids in Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights and Israel who have lived in fear of terrorism under Israeli dominion for decades.
The greatest human virtue humble humane empathy treating and respecting others as you want and expect to be treated. Me and mine are clearly not a part of Mr. Stephens' we'. And he and his are certainly not a part of mine.
11
How do you know who Mr Stephens has empathy for? You diatribe does nothing to advance anything worth the struggle. The world is complicated at best and your need to be "Pure" is purely self-destructive.
17
Pulitzer should be next for you.
1
I rarely agree with the author. However, this piece represents my sentiments perfectly.
15
I object to the thoughtless use of the phrase "there but for the grace of God..." It implies that God somehow cares more for you than for those who died. Check with your rabbi. We're mainstream reform Christians, and would never presume that we have "more" of God's grace than anyone else.
6
the whole point of grace, at least in the Christian meaning, is that it is undeserved, inexplicable. So actually, the phrase can be construed to mean quite the opposite. The ever-popular "blessed," however...well, that's closer to the sense you give here.
13
Trump, weighing in by reading badly whatever statement that was put in front of him offers no general positive advice. He only shows he's an opportunist trying to use this as a way to push anti-Islamic immigration. Which will fail as most everything he touches does. It's always important to consider the source. With that in mind It would be good to hear Trump express outrage at the March stabbing of an African American man in New York, allegedly by a white supremacist from Maryland who police say admitted traveling to the Big Apple to indulge his long-harbored hatred of black men. He wanted to trigger a killing spree against African Americans, police said.
This individual hate crimes apparently don’t rise to presidential attention, at least not like Manchester’s multiple deaths, which tend to focus the mind. But solitary attacks add up.
As the Anti-Defamation League noted in a new report, “A Dark & Constant Rage: 25 Years of Right-Wing Terrorism in the United States,” the United States has experienced a long string of terrorist incidents, with many connected not to Islamist terrorists but to right-wing extremists.
The findings were startling.
The ADL analyzed 150 terrorist acts in the United States that were committed, attempted or plotted by right-wing extremists. “More than 800 people were killed or injured in these attacks,” Where's the out rage on this? I'll be waiting. but not holding my breath.
126
Yesterday's attack in Manhattan was heinous, cowardly, deadly. The same can be said here in Chicago where I sit, a city that has a steady trickle of 2, 3, 4, sometimes 7 gun-related homicides every day. No one reacts to our violence in the manner one is accustomed to taking on about a terrorist attack. Yet those poor victims of our out-of-control gun proliferation here, in NY and everywhere are just as dead.
55
Funny how all those guns seem to prefer killing people in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Oakland, but not in Iowa, Oregon, Montana, or Vermont.
2
I lived in the City a long time ago. My brother lives on Long Island. On a beautiful weekend, this time of year. he suggested we walk the High Line Park, which was new to me. The walkway was wall to wall people, a melting pot of languages, a tourist hotbed, The crowds were way too much for me, and I suggested we walk the West Side path instead. Call it a bike path, but it was the runners who caught my attention. I have never seen so many talented runners in one place. It seemed like every former college track star was doing ta regular workout.
Unlike the High Line Park, the Wet Side path is not fashionable. It is a place where people go for regular workouts and routine walks, It is not a place to see and be seen. The West Side path is for those doing their regular workouts. Phoenix has its canals. Boston has theCharles River path. And DC has the mall. These are places where exact distances are known by regular users who check their watches to assure that they are keeping their target pace. The High Line Park is rated #1 in tourist listings. The West Side Park isn't rated.
1
@Michjac:
The High Line is fashionable only to tourists. Think Yogi's comment "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." The West Side Greenway--Hudson River Park is also often jam packed with tourists as well as the locals running and cycling.
3
Thank you for putting into words how my family and i have been feeling since the terrible news broke yesterday, that terror returned to downtown. The path of destruction has been bringing my entire family such joy for years. Having lived in Tribeca since before 9/11 I marvel everyday at the spectacular community Tribeca has turned into and how our resilience will continue to keep it a wonderful and vibrant place to bring up our kids and play with our grandchildren.
9
I am not sure I agree. Oklahoma City and the Louisiana Delta as well as Puerto Rico and Florida are all also "real America" as well, and when they hurt or get hurt, there are folks there who feel the same way as New Yorkers do. If this were not true, we would never be a functional nation with any basic sense of empathy.
The idea of one's feeling a special identity when some terrifying event occurs may be a natural attempt by people to reach out and to know that other people are the same and feel the same. It's the same reason children clasp their parents or teachers.
New Yorkers are just us and perhaps this makes us feel special for a time.
6
Meloop--I think Bret is trying to make a tweak to pundits like Sarah Palin who constantly assert that the real America is certainly not on the two coasts where the coastal elites gather; real america to her (and other denizens of fox new, etc.) is places like OK, LA, FL-- you know...red states. Perhaps Bret's tweak was clumsy, probably due to fresh emotions and a pretty narrow brush with fate.
11
The cause of PTSD has a lot to do with the aftermath of a traumatic event... what happens to the person after the event rather than just the event itself. For eye witnesses, or people easily triggered because of their own history, it's important to take care of yourself in ways that have been proven to work. That includes not watching news constantly (not exposing yourself to repeated images) and not re-telling the story repeatedly without interruption.
I wish every parent, teacher and medical professional had some basic training in attachment and emotional first aid to avoid the overamplification of trauma. Here are a couple of great little first aid kits:
http://www.ginaross.com/images/emotional_first_aid_brief_guide.pdf
https://francescaredden.com/emotional-first-aid-trauma-prevention-every-...
7
Beautiful piece, thank you. As a lifelong urban dweller, the fact that some people actually believe they are more American than we are is outrageous. We don't live in fear and loathing, and that is the best thing about living in the city.
44
Great op-ed. Your last two paragraphs brought tears to my eyes-and we had hordes of trick-or-treaters at our apartment building last night!
4
In Manhattan my ex student who is now Dr. Larry Myers of St John s University and director of The Playwrights Sanctuary mentors new and younger dramatists. His tri coastal theater foundation helps dramatists write their plays. he feels
this all must be recorded and transcribed immediately to probe causation. He is net attending aid museum in Florida dealing with long term survivors. Theater arts must be utilitarian and are desperately needed in our troubled times.
Myers chipped in to help via Facebook tracks yesterday and helped shepherd young terrified kids with their teachers.
1
That's beautiful but the fact is that we don't need more immigrants, or diversity, or people from medieval religions who want to destroy our way of life. And I'm a New Yorker, by the way.
23
Ah, we don't need any more immigrants. Somewhere in your past you had family who immigrated to this country and four of them married (maternal and paternal) and started the family that would produce you. Perhaps the United States doesn't need your family's diverse background? Fortunately, the majority of New Yorkers don't agree with you. You are welcome to stay, however.
6
Lynn: but that was then, we were a huge empty frontier nation that NEEDED immigrants.
That era is now long over. We are FULL UP. It doesn't matter where you are from -- we don't have room for any more. Period.
Unfortunately in our current world what happened in Manhattan yesterday, as in many other countries, has become the new reality. As our authorities rush to protect us we must be prepared to guard and help one another as well. Our leaders must do everything to help assuage the agony and provide solace and support. Unfortunately, in this respect our President has utterly failed being more involved in worthless political mouthing and ugly recriminations.
50
"and trick-or-treating proceeded on schedule"
...and THAT is how terrorism is defeated: by holding fast to your values and your way of life and not letting violent fanatics destroy those things.
Our right wing doesn't understand this. By becoming scared stupid and wanting a yuge wall to cower behind (Home of the Brave, cowards!) and wanting to ban all brown immigrants...they're letting the terrorist dictate their new way of life and their new reality. The terrorists win if you do exactly what they want and become the un-American monster that they wish to depict us as.
By remembering the good of our society, and acknowledging the diversity on the side of those who were sheltering children and helping strangers, our way of life defeats them automatically.
If the right didn't give them so much of what they want, terrorist attacks wouldn't be as popular: by allowing them to be SUCCESSFUL at terrorizing our people, the right is GIVING them exactly what they want, and encouraging more and more attacks.
LITERALLY, "ignore them and they will go away" is perhaps the HARDEST response to terrorism, but it remains the most effective. If they all die for NOTHING, becoming a jihadist loses its appeal.
I'm very proud of everyone who went out trick-or-treating that evening. THAT is the way citizens of the Home of the Brave SHOULD behave, NOT cowering in terror behind a yuge wall exactly as the enemy desires.
30
Dear Zen Phoenix,
I was with you all the way until "...ignore them and they will go away..."
While this is a very convenient response, unfortunately the people intent on terrorizing their fellow humans in the name of Allah are not going to be ignored and they have not been socialized very well.
Of course cowering in fear is not an option but doing nothing but ignoring them will only get more people killed.
What to do? Keep fighting them when we have to and when they are in this country, having conversations with the Muslims in our midst to help them not be alienated. Some will not accept such friendship and then they will end up like this fellow or worse.
But ignoring them will not help.
I believe that people on a daily basis, all across America, are victims of either drunk drivers, those that shoot guns, and those that commit acts of terror whether related to religious ideology, or right wing thinking. It is the male animal, for the most part, that has a need to go out in a blaze of glory, and it matters little by what method that entails. If the media would not grant so much attention, replaying the incidents over and over and over again, until everyone is numb to any, and all of the above, maybe we could think clearly to come up with better deterrents to try to prevent more of the above.
8
An Islamic terrorist mows down innocent people in NYC and Mary blames men and gun owners. I bet Mary is still astonished that men and gun owners voted for a boorish know-nothing rather than a progressive who blames them for everything that goes wrong.
I didn't either imply or say anything that men and gun owners are to blame for this terrorist attack. I stated that gun shootings, common each day, and drunk drivers, obviously including females, also kill each day, and dead is dead to the families who are just in as much shock not matter which of the three ways their love ones are killed! Several killed at Walmart in Colorado tonight from gunshots
1
Bravo, Bret. Beautifully said.
11
Whether it's the Boston Marathon, night clubbers in Orlando, country and western fans attending a concert in Las Vegas or bikers in Lower Manhattan, peaceful citizens across America are at risk, either because of an extremist religious concept or a disgruntled antisocial lone wolf copy-cat misfit who wants 15 minutes of fame. After these horrible deeds are done, the profiles of these deranged people flood the newspapers and airwaves as the media try to define who these people are and why they committed these acts of terror. Yes, we have heroes among us, like Officer Ryan Nash and the unarmed civilian who tackled the suspect, and they define who Americans are, but the man from Uzbekistan is front page news today.
4
Obviously the people who live in Manhattan are out of touch with reality. But again, so are the people who think that this country is a WASP paradise, and that those who don't live (and perhaps don't want to live) in such a reality are decaying, self-destructive liberals.
These views are false and (in the case of the latter) deleterious. They have hurt our sense of identity immensely, and, as President Trump proves, even principles we took for granted. These views must not reach power, and the only way these wretched perceptions of reality can be stopped is through democracy — true democracy — not one in which we are run by oligarchs, bigots and elites utterly unreachable though extremely powerful.
1
Seriously? "Obviously the people who live in Manhattan are out of touch with reality"?!
What's WRONG with people that make such statements? EVERY person in Manhattan can say the same about you...ESPECIALLY because of this statement!
Are you suggesting everyone in Manhattan is sheltered from the realities of work, hardship, struggles...? WHAT version of Manhattan exists in your head where it's all smiles and giggles?
Statements like this are DEVOID of any contact with reality...got news for you: Manhattan exists WITHIN reality, and every single person living there is in CONSTANT contact with it...unlike people who state that other Americans don't know reality...
20
Certainly not many people in Manhattan have felt the effects of deindustrialization, vanishing communities and shattering families...
I did not suggest that people who live in Manhattan don't suffer the stress of work and the yokes of life that every human being does. I said that this split of realities — one which rightly champions diversity and another which elects Trump — is not to be blamed solely on racism, but on several other factors that are not found in the life of privileged people in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc. And the only way to stop these realities from colliding is by giving them voice, not allowing privileges on one side nor disability on the other.
My call was for true democracy, but you apparently understood it as a rant against wealthy New Yorkers... It's definitely not with me that there is something wrong.
Loyalty is one of the highest principles, which can make those who value it appear unprincipled to others, but it’s one reason New Yorkers will tolerate all kinds of weirdness—so long as you’re true to New York: THE City.
1
As someone who grew up in rural Pennsylvania and who still has family there, and who has lived in NYC for the entirety of his adult life post college (I am now 56), I have a foot in both worlds, so to speak. I have seen the many ways in which those who know one or the other, but not both, of those worlds misapprehend and caricature those from the other world they don't really know, or know only in a very shallow sense.
To be sure, New Yorkers, and indeed, coastal urbanites in general, are sometimes guilty of a kind of smug senses of cultural superiority towards their rural compatriots. But sad to say, this need to define what is or is not part of "real America," or of who is or is not a "real American," is an impulse that is almost entirely one-sided, coming from the rural side. Cultural snobbery notwithstanding, I have never heard, for example, a New Yorker dismissing rural folks or rural America as being not a part of "real America," although they may certainly be appalled by some of the attitudes that are more widely held in rural areas. But I grew up with, and often still hear whenever I visit my hometown, the many subtle and not so subtle ways in which rural folks insist upon congratulating themselves for being "real America," and at the same time implying that coastal, urban centers and their inhabitants are somehow less American than themselves.
It's all enough to make me wonder, at times, who the "elitists" among us really are.
288
I beg to differ- though the phrase is different, the constant reference to anything not within 100 miles of a coastline as 'flyover country', is used to the same effect, to discount the residents of middle America, just as the way 'Real America' is used. The elitists are still gathered in the great metropolises of the country- for the most part anyway.
6
I've heard references to "real America" since I was a kid. "Fly-over country" is of much more recent vintage.
4
Large cities are hubs of culture, commerce and finance, and as such, by their very nature they will always attract the lion's share of a society's movers and shakers. That doesn't mean, however, that an entire urban population consists of "elites," or that everyone who writes for a media outlet headquartered in a major city is a member of some "elite." Most are just ordinary folks, with mostly the same concerns as people anywhere else have. Some are incredibly wealthy, but many more are quite poor; most fall somewhere in the middle.
The suggestion that urbanites are all or mostly "elites" is as grotesque a stereotype as any concocted about rural Americans.
4
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas. Our global community is more important than few thousands people with long beards and radical thoughts
9
Hi everyone. I’m from Italy and I think that what happened yesterday was something really deplorable. After this attack we understood that terrorists are not attacking symbols and monuments anymore, but their targets are real people. You have all my support, and I think that only by acting together, we can definitely defeat ISIS. You, NYT, are really important in this process, because by promoting the truth, always the truth and only the truth, I think that you are helping everybody in understanding better this difficult situation.
Thanks for your everyday’s work, thanks for spreading the truth worldwide.
61
And grazie to you Marco from Italy, for so eloquently sharing your fellowship with our country. We have that with Italy also.
6
"Determined fanatics will usually outwit the Department of Homeland Security’s games of whack-a-mole. A heavy-handed immigration policy will never be an effective counterterrorism strategy."
Keep in mind that jihadists are trying to get their hands on nuclear bombs on a regular basis and will not hesitate to use them. In fact, the ex head of Afghanistan’s national directorate of security detailed the problems of Pakistan to keep its nuclear weapons safe at length here. This is not a game.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/opinion/the-world-must-secure-pakista...
1
Really? It's NOT a game?! Gee, golly, gosh, the rest of us just WEREN'T taking this seriously 'til your scolding...
1
True. The terrorist threat is very real in America. The terrorists are us. More than thirty Americans are murdered by gunfire each and every day. That's equivalent to nearly four terrorist attacks like the one that took place in lower Manhattan yesterday. Where's the outrage?
65
No, no. Guns make us SAFER, remember? Those of us who don't die to the daily gunfire, that is...
3
I'm going to blame Trump like he blames everyone else for his failings. Like he has already done with this attack. It's his watch therefore his fault.
61
He said he needed his original immigration ban for 90 days while they review and re-think the vetting process for immigrants.
It's been more than 90 days...where's the new vetting rules?
1
"Real" America? Meaning New York City I guess? Apparently nightclubs(Orlando), concerts(Las Vegas), running events(Boston), day care centers (Oklahoma City), churches (Birmingham and Charleston) are not "real" America. Not to mention a wide range of other targets including numerous family planning clinics. I guess these are all "fake" America.
3
I thought the theme here was that NYC and more specifically Bret Stephens' neighborhood in lower Manhattan is as much a part of real America as all the other places you mentioned.
67
I think Bret was just pointing out that NY and other cities considered liberal are often derided as not being "real" America. He isn't disparaging those other places either, just reminding people that NYers are also real Americans. I do think he could have made that point more clear.
44
I don't think he meant that at all-perhaps you have forgotten various political rallies over the last decade or so when GOPers announce that they are so happy to be back in the "Real America"of a red state.
19
Thanks for this. New Yorkers have a lot to be proud of, from the superb work of our uniformed services (big shout out to Officer Nash) to the resiliency displayed by all.
PS: Senator Cruz, please go away. Senator Schumer, please keep up the good work.
152
I wish people like Mr. Stephens and the politicians and officials who feel they must make pronouncements after attacks like these would stop ascribing the motivation to things like "our openness, diversity," etc. There are many reasons why these things happen, a lot of them irrational, but many of them having nothing to do with how supposedly wonderful we are over here in the USA, and the oversimplifications make me feel less safe. To hear the mayor or the governor say things like 'We will not be changed by this' when we have so obviously already been changed by things just like this, or to hear 'We will not be afraid' when we have every right to be afraid, makes me even more fearful that we are not in good hands.
108
We have every right to be afraid of all sorts of things, and are nevertheless not. Whenever we see a car in oncoming traffic, we could be afraid that the driver is texting and will be distracted, veer off in front of us, and not recover in time. This is much more likely to happen to any of us than an injury from a terrorist, but we are not afraid. We just carry on and pay attention to the road a bit more. When we affirm that we will not be afraid after a terrorist incident, this is what we are affirming.
We do not have a right to be afraid if that is going to give terrorists success by changing our behavior; that is aiding our enemy, giving him a victory rather than the finger.
Why are we always trying to intuit or infer a terrorist's motivations even when he/she explicitly tells us why he/she committed their attack? This Uzbek, for example, is alive and will apparently remain so for the time being. If we wish to know why he did what he did, wouldn't it be best to ask him, or to look at what he wrote, what he said, or, even better, all of the above? If we are always going to reject terrorists' own words, then we'll never be able to agree re motive.
However, terrorists endlessly complain about things that America hasn't really done or shouldn't change, like policy towards Israel. If someone has a really bad idea about what's going on in the world and believes wholeheartedly that they are in a civilizational war with the sinful, satanic West, it might be a little difficult to win this war, which they've declared, via persuasion. If they so wish to die on the battlefield, many of them, then we can continue to oblige them.
Many leftists complain about simplistic notions of us, the good guys, against them, the bad guys, but I think it is essential for the majority of the country to believe in what we are doing. And I don't just mean in a Plato's "noble lie" kind of way. I'm convinced that these people are not at war with us simply because of alleged atrocities and imperialism (Islam is and has always been engaged in a lot of that itself). Terrorists certainly believe they're the good guys here. Good for them. But so do we -- or at least we better.
But when Rudy said walk away from the buildings, he became America's mayor ?
Please.
Thanks Bret, for leaving politics out of it, and speaking to our common humanity!
131
Adam Smith, thank you "for leaving politics out of it" apparently was not in our president's heart when he did not pick up the phone to offer support to our Mayor or Governor and instead blamed our Senator for the attack. And from a "real" New Yorker...despicable.
1
There is no practical way to control pick-up trucks and no practical way to detect crazy people in advance. But the City could and should start adding bollards at entrances to bike paths and parks, and along sidewalks of major avenues.
Bollards are the vertical posts used to keep vehicles out of sensitive areas. They are often closely spaced around high-security buildings, but to keep a nut from driving a truck on the sidewalk, a bollard every 20 get or do would be sufficient.
34
We're going to be seeing TONS more of those: every public park, bike path, and pretty much every area designated for large gatherings are going to be installing them in the next few years if they don't already have them.
Running people down by automobile is the new Cowards' Favorite method of attack, so now we will respond to that.
3
I am genuinely sorry for the trauma you and your family, and the other victims of this attack, experienced.
Your statement that "ideological pronouncements seem remote, feckless and wretched" is one I agree with. Because you use the word "seem." Of course they seem that way. How could they not to someone who actually experienced such violence in their neighborhood?
But of course they are not, in realty, "remote, feckless and wretched." Policy is developed to solve problems. This latest attack is an example of a problem that we all would like solved.
The perpetrator is, in fact, an immigrant. He had no natural right to be here. He also had no Constitutional right to be here. It would have been better if had not be allowed to move here.
Yet you assert that "A heavy-handed immigration policy will never be an effective counterterrorism strategy."
You might better have said that it "will never be a perfect counterterrorism strategy." But for effective—having an effect, achieving a goal—of course it is.
Screening immigrants, especially those from parts of the world with a deep hatred for the United States, is a common sensical. Surely you don't want anyone to be able to move to our country?
When someone like the attacker slips through the vetting processes we have, it makes sense to at least review those processes, and tighten them up.
That way, we could prevent some attacks, and prevent more people from enduring what you, your family, and your neighbors had to.
6
Let's make a deal America: everyone apply the same logic to immigration policy and guns in America. I have copied your comment and edited accordingly.
We have no natural right to own 50 assault rifles. It would have been better if we weren't allowed to.
It "will never be a perfect strategy." But for effective—having an effect, achieving a goal—of course it is.
When someone like the attacker slips through the vetting processes we have, it makes sense to at least review those processes, and tighten them up.
That way, we could prevent some attacks, and prevent more people from enduring what you, your family, and your neighbors had to.
11
It's been more than 90 days: where's Trump's new vetting rules?
1
Good question.