Terrorism has Caused America to Change

From The Economist's article "The Long Road Home":

"A new generation is coming of age with little memory of the more open and trusting America of ten years ago. The new America keeps looking over its shoulder. It is permanently vigilant and relentlessly intrusive. Few people complain about the security-inspired hassles that have infected everyday activities, from boarding an airliner to applying for some required government document. Safety first is, understandably, the order of the day in a world in which killers hide bombs in their shoes and underpants. But the cumulative result of all these precautions is a wretched thing. A culture of suspicion, and its accompanying bureaucracy, take away trust in your fellow man. A less tolerant America, whose prosperity was built on openness to the world, has shut down its borders and locked out many of the skilled and eager immigrants whose help it could dearly use."

          Out of the entire article, this is the part that made me think the most critically; I hadn't really stopped to understand the extent to which America believes the world is a scarier place than it once was (which it is).  I guess I just took it as part of growing up; that even though I learned more as I grew up, the terrorists and other evil things in the world have always been present.  Which, they have to an extent.  It strikes me as almost a tragedy the way that our nation cannot really trust other nations; and even more close-to-home: our fellow Americans cannot trust each other.  

         Take Black Elk for example:  He belonged to a tribe, and his tribe had allies.  They all trusted each other and were comfortable with one another.  They all had the same enemies, and they were all about helping each other out.  What if we called our American nation a tribe?  That we, as the American tribe, have our allies, but yet we don't trust them like the Native Americans trusted their allies.  We don't have all of the same enemies as our allies, and neither do we always make mutual efforts to help each other out.  It is interesting to consider the ways in which our nation has changed; the ways in which our trust has been built up and torn down over and over again, and the ways in which our efforts with our allies have evolved over the decades.