David, a friend of mine sent me the story a while back when they were sitll building the ship and noted that “this is truly a case of beating ploughshares into swords.”

The World Trade Center was once a center of commerce and industry in which people engaged in free exchange of goods and worked to make the world a more prosperous and decent place.  At the World Trade Center, the peace of the free market improved the lives of people daily. It was a giant ploughshare. Then one day a bunch of murderers destroyed the building and the people inside it, and the government in power at the time beat the steel from the building into a giant sword. Steel from the building can now be used to fight, not the murderers, all of whom are dead, but people completely unrelated to the event.  How proud we can all be that in some future pointless war, women and children, many of whom hadn’t even yet been born when the people in the World Trade Center were murdered, will be incinerated by the weapons on that ship.

With the ploughshares, of course, we’re referring to the book of Isaiah in which the prophet (according to the Christians, at least) describes Jesus as the Prince of Peace. I know the Conservatives (who claim to be supporters of “Christian values”) thought it was just hilarious when Ron Paul used that title for Christ during the presidential campaign. But hey, I’m sure Jesus, and His Mother too, will just love it the first time some rocket from that ship rips out someone’s entrails. As he or she dies there choking on his or her own blood, the angels in heaven will undoubtedly appear in a great chorus over the ship proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest. And on earth, war. Ill will to men.”

UPDATE and more…

One reader writes that the steel-turned-ship situation  “strikes right at the Parade Magazine/Readers Digest/Power-of-Pride Bumper Sticker emotional adolescence that has been so carefully cultivated.”

So true. You know that midwestern grandmas and the unquestioning and obedient taxpaying suckers of middle America tear up just a little bit when they read about this. It’s making the rounds as an “inspirational” email as I write this I’m sure.  This story surely has or will make an appearance in Parade Magazine and the readers can weep a little after reading the story, and right before they purchase the latest Norman Rockwell collectible plate off the back page.