The Primary Lesson of the 9/11 Attacks

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Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly, thanks for watching us tonight, on the one year anniversary of the 9/11 sneak attack on the United States.

We will have no commercial interruptions this evening. And we will bring a variety of perspectives on the day.

Also, I am wearing a special tie sent to me by Carmela LaSpada, the Director of the White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance. The tie was made by textile workers here in New York City and symbolizes "one flag, one heart, one nation, evermore" a quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The Talking Points Memo this evening is about the primary lesson of the 9/11 attack.

Every person has an epiphany, an awakening, a moment in time when even the dimmest human being sees the truth about his or her own life.

Often that moment is ignored but sometimes a person seizes the insight and changes his or her outlook.

The defining theme of 9/11 was the sheer evil of it. Yes, the reactive heroism is worth celebrating and memorializing forever but it is the evil that will shape our future as Americans.

The battle between good and evil has been with us since the advent of man. If you believe in God, you know that each human being has been given a free will and with that can choose to do good or to do bad.

In most theologies, good is rewarded in the afterlife while evil is punished.

But the point here on earth is that evil does exist. And history has proven it over and over again. But because America has become so affluent and we have so many conveniences and distractions many of us have failed to even consider evil thus we were caught by surprise by vicious killers acting in concert with murderous governments.

Unfortunately, many Americans still cannot grasp the evil concept and that's because they see the world the way they want it to be not the way it is. Inevitably, when I talk with people that want to allow Saddam Hussein to stay in power they always say that we can reason with him or contain him.

The lesson of Hitler and Tojo in the '30s has been lost on these people. If you allow evil to operate freely, it will find a way to create terror and misery.

The events of 9/11 have certainly mobilized a huge number of Americans to speak out against those that would hurt us -- the Ludacris-Pepsi incident proved that.

No longer will companies that reward bad behavior go unchallenged. No longer will the pushers of violence and degeneracy be allowed to do so without scrutiny. Thousands of Americans let Pepsi know that the likes of Ludacris was simply unacceptable.

Most people know who the bad guys are. But we often allow them to go unchecked and that has made them powerful. My hope is that 9/11 is the beginning of a reversal of fortune for the merchants of death and destruction.

If that comes true, no finer legacy could be bestowed upon the Americans slaughtered .... one year ago today.

And that's The Memo.

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Editor's Note: No "Most Ridiculous Item" due to special 9/11 coverage.

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