The #Flag911 project

In case you missed my mention of The Heritage Foundation’s #Flag911 project in this post, I wanted to highlight it again today because I see in it such a simple, but significant, opportunity to demonstrate solidarity with the cause of freedom from terror.

As the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches, the news media and the American people have begun to remember just why national security should be a top budgetary priority. Accounts like former President George W. Bush’s first-ever 9/11 interview revive the painful memory of the very real threat against us carried out in an unprecedented way that day — a threat that, while not demonstrated again in so devastating an attack, has also not abated.

When the Super Committee established by the debt ceiling deal begins its difficult work of deficit reduction, it will face a troubling trigger to ensure it reaches its target spending cuts: cuts to defense of at least $500 billion (and even if the Committee proactively cuts as it is designed to do, large defense cuts will still likely be a part of the equation). In the quest to cut spending, it’s all too easy to be distracted by the size of the defense budget, to forget that the Constitution expressly states that one of the purposes of the federal government is to “provide for the common defense,” to forget that entitlement spending dwarfs defense spending. It becomes a seeming “no-brainer” to cut defense spending, when, in fact, such cuts are foolish if we want to maintain our military readiness.

Similarly, it’s all too easy to forget the high price we paid 10 years ago and to grow weary or lax in the defense of freedom and in the support of our troops. That’s where the #Flag911 project comes in. At its core, the project is a concentrated effort to remember. Heritage’s Ericka Anderson explains:

We [are] asking Americans to join us in a display of unity once again. On Sunday, September 11, 2011, we hope that every neighborhood across the nation is flooded with American flags celebrating the lives of those we lost in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania and the heroism we witnessed, while also reminding each other that the fight to prevent another attack is not over.

Please continue to check in with us here on The Foundry, at Heritage.org and on Facebook and Twitter over the next four weeks. On Twitter, send us pictures of your flag flying by using the hashtag #Flag911 in your tweet to offer your own remembrances and encourage others to join with us.

We must remember how we stood as a nation with a shared purpose and intensity on September 12, 2001 and in the days following. That collective and eternal vigilance is still essential. Never quit.

If you do decide to join the project (and I really hope you will!), please post a link to your pictures here at Hot Air, too. And don’t miss the National Geographic special of G.W.’s interview tonight at 9 p.m. ET. Keep the faith.

Update: You can send a Flag911 reminder to friends and family using FreedomCards.com.