“Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we counternance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions.”

Today the political spectrum swing very much the other way - its the intolerance of non-religious elements and minorities that we need now to confront - let's embrace our differences and export that instead of war.

Not a bad idea if peopel would not start by exporting war to us. Can we have a chorus of Kumbaya and another dose Kool aide Robert?

Those advocates of "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" would have everyone believe that the current 'non-religious' are any less intolerant or dangerous than radical religionists.

9-11 was a criminal act not an act of War between nations - thanks for the Kool aide

In August 1998, the U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, said Osama bin Laden, the reputed mastermind of truck-bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, had "declared war on the United States and struck first."

If Bin Laden has declared war on the US, then shouldn't we be at war with his country and the country of the hijackers -- Saudi Arabia!? So if I blow up a building in London and declare war on England, does that mean the British have the right to bomb the US? Again, we stretch the meaning of words beyond recognition. 'American interests' are whatever the politicians say they are; however, they do not supercede the Rights of the People and the Constitution that has formed our government. Sorry, Middle Eastern resources may be American interests, but our government has no right to them. Of course history is written by the victors. I guess Jefferson's appeal to peace has fallen on deaf ears -- particularly those that wear their religion on their lapels. Religious intolerance is indeed a terrible evil.

We have been at war with them from the time they declared war on us. We just didn't wake up to it till 9/11. To stick your head in the sand and pretend there is no war is idiotic. Any one that thinks 9/11 was only criminal act is a fool. I have not read anything in here that stupid before.

It is religious intolerance that we are at war with in the Middle East right now if you haven't noticed. We must defeat it or it will eventually destroy all of us.