We Fight Back!

The horror of the vicious attack by terrorists on America has not and will not crush our spirit. Remember the heroes!

• Those who fought the hijackers in the air over Pennsylvania and brought that plane to the ground, saving many lives, and giving us some of the best evidence to date.

• Those rescue personnel who rushed into the World Trade Center to save what they could, even as the shattered building collapsed around them.

• Those who died, trying to save friends or loved ones.

• Those who made horrible choices in the last moments of their lives, who would not submit passively to death.

"Freedom was attacked", the President said. These are the enemies of civilization. They struck at the World Trade Center, symbol of capitalism. They struck at the Pentagon, symbol of the military defense of a free nation. They would have struck at the White House or Camp David, symbol of the elected leadership of our free republic.

Make no mistake, the symbolism was intentional.

Make no mistake, we must retaliate. We must retaliate with massive, unrelenting, overwhelming force.

As lovers of freedom, we unite around the non-aggression principle, which states that the core immoral act is to initiate the use of force. We have not and will not initiate force. We can and must retaliate. We must exact retribution, and we must be prepared to do so in the absence of perfect information.

A police officer in a firefight will warn and then kill anyone standing with a weapon. We cannot do less. Those who are poised to strike at us, and anyone who offers any comfort or support to them, must be prepared to suffer our response.

Concern for Liberty

In our justified anger and concern over this attack, we must not allow our freedom to be compromised. We have already suffered significant losses of fundamental freedoms and privacy as a result of the "War on Drugs". We cannot allow the "War on Terrorism" to be even worse in the damage it does.

Racism is not an answer to this problem - Islamic religion, Middle Eastern descent... none of these are determinants of terrorist intent. We are a nation that welcomes people of all religions, and all compatible philosophies. We must remain that nation.

More regulation of private behavior, transactions, or intrusive surveillance will not protect us against a foe who has no fear of death. We can only expunge each enemy we identify and strike fear into the hearts of those who support them.

If we become a police state to attain an impossible security, we will have handed our enemies a victory they could never have achieved themselves.

My Answer

Each of us can do something. What I have done here is to use my artistic talent to create images that represent my thoughts and emotions. I offer them to you, in hopes that they will strengthen and inspire you. Showing images, wearing T-shirts... these are things we can do to remind ourselves and others of what we must do.

But I am not an altruist. I am an Objectivist. Selflessness - avoiding defense and retaliation out of an unwillingness to do what we must to protect ourselves or out of a misguided identification with the aggressor - has brought us to this.

Everything costs something. These images have cost days of my life. In the spirit of the capitalism that has been a target of this attack, I will charge you for these images. I hope you will find them worth the cost.

Bookmark this page and return - you will find more images and products here as I have time to produce them.

Don't Tread On Me

You can purchase large printable / screen background copies of the poster and the image through The Temporal Doorway Storefront.

You can purchase t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and mousepads through The Temporal Doorway Storefront - Don't Tread On Me! at CafePress.

	The Culpeper Flag was a symbol of the Revolutionary War. Its mascot, the rattlesnake, is probably the best symbol of the American spirit in regard to war. We are peaceful when unprovoked, lethal when attacked.
	The image is presented and discussed in the current show at the Temporal Doorway Gallery.

Top Quotes

Before they died on Flight 93, Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett Jr. and Todd Beamer did something characteristically American. So characteristic, in fact, it has passed almost unnoticed. Leaderless, armed only with only plastic butter knives, knowing a wrong move would risk their own and others' lives, at least three guys did what Americans do: They voted. They voted to jump the hijacker with the (perhaps fake) red bomb strapped to his chest. "Let's roll," Todd Beamer was overheard by a GTE supervisor saying. Moments before, Beamer and the GTE supervisor did something else characteristically American: They prayed. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me." (Townhall.com)

"When I take action," [Bush] said, "I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive." (Newmax.com)

"I want justice," Bush said when asked by reporters if he wanted bin Laden killed in retaliation for terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. "There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive..." [he leans back in his chair, for all the world, like a sheriff in the Old West himself...] "All I'm doing is remembering." he remarks, smiling easily. "When I was a kid I remember that they used to put out there in the Old West a wanted poster. It said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" Referring to bin Laden, Bush added, "All I want, and America want, is him brought to justice." (Newsmax.com)

"If you can trust me with 100,000 pounds of explosives [jet fuel] in the wings every time I take off, I think I can be trusted to handle a firearm safely as well." Russell T. Cowles, American Airlines pilot, saying that pilots should be armed with handguns carrying frangible rounds. (WorldNetDaily)

"We have a choice, either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or to change the way that they live, and we have -- we chose the latter. " Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.

"The way to deal with this problem is not to suddenly become a police state and say we're not going to be free, and we're not going to go about our lives. It's to go after the people who are posing this very serious danger to the world. And that's what we need to do." Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.