Today is the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and I am not watching the news but rather thinking quietly about this marker of time in a bedroom of my brother’s Utah home. It is quiet in this bedroom. The kids are awake and playing downstairs but during this brief moment I only hear the sound of toy helicopters flying, my brother’s voice, and the hum of the air conditioner. You would never guess this day was different than any other day or special in some way. For me, that tells me that the terrorists completely failed on 9/11.

Yesterday we drove up into the mountains surrounding Salt Lake City, on our way to find a nice restaurant in order to celebrate my brother’s 40th birthday. On the way up, we noticed activity at the Olympic downhill training center. We pulled into the parking lot and discovered that several skiiers were practicing their sport on a long practice ramp. They started high up at the top of a ramp (there’s no snow yet but it didn’t matter) and they shot down the ramp at an incredible speed. At the end of the ramp they did aerial stunts, twists and turns and somersaults in the sky. We were mesmerized. They landed in huge pool of water. My brother, my cousin and I took photos and joked that we would never have the nerve to do such a thing; maybe we would have tried it when we were younger but we were all feeling a little old. It wasn’t long before our kids started sliding down the grass next to the observation area, trying to re-enact the stunts they were seeing.

After watching the spectacle for 20 minutes or so (and wondering how these skiiers ever survived) we went inside the training center’s museum. Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Olympics and the museum documented how they the opening ceremonies included a memorial to the victims of 9/11. Here is more proof that the terrorists didn’t win. The Salt Lake City games went on without skipping a beat and since then the world has continued to host Olympic games. The last games were in China in a bird’s nest stadium and the next games are in Brazil, in some new stadium which I haven’t seen yet. It seems nothing can stop the Olympics from continuing. And the organizers have not only continued the games but they have been bold in choosing these host cities, cities that represent the most active and growing economies of the world.

Many people love to complain about the sorry state of politics in the U.S., the bickering and stalling and disagreements. They say the country has never been so divided. This is wrong. What about the civil war? We fought a civil war and we were only more powerful afterwards. I think the bickering is a very good thing. Many times we are annoyed with the comments of extreme politicians on the right or the left, but the fact that we have public debate and the public participates just shows that democracy is alive and well. This is a good thing. The terrorists of 9/11 may have wanted to squelch democracy and our Enlightenment way of thinking. But debate in our country has only increased. The fact is, we’ve always had heated debates. At one time, politicians or their goonies shot each other or challenged one another to fist-fights on street corners. I haven’t heard of this happening recently, although it could. And as much as I don’t like the angry rhetoric of some groups, I’d rather have that than no rhetoric. Plus, the angry rhetoric is actually about things that count, like our values and our goals as a nation. In Spain, where I lived last year, there was almost no meaningful rhetoric. Everyone just accepted things as they were, feeling that they could change nothing. Only at the end of my stay in Spain did the people begin to express political thoughts. Unemployment that hovers at 20 percent for adults and 40 percent for college graduates was the crisis that drove young and old people onto the streets to demand change. This is what Obama and every other American wants to avoid. That is why he is pushing for a jobs package.

There has been no large-scale attack on the U.S. since 9/11. Who knows if there will be another one. I believe most airports and landmarks are on high-alert today. I wonder how it will feel flying home today. I doubt there will be problems. I haven’t heard of any stores closing or airlines canceling flights. If the terrorists had any truth at all to their storyline, it was that American consumerism drives our lives more and more. The terrorists didn’t stop our consumer culture from flourishing. That has only grown bigger. In my mind this is the real threat to our power as a nation. Our obsession with buying things will be our downfall; political infighting only stalls us from getting to this real problem. Almost nobody talks about it, but our thirst for goods is sure to kill us one day, unless we change our lifestyles dramatically.