25 years ago today, a horrific act of mass murder threatened to change the United States and the world. The use of four passenger jets as weapons of war was shocking in its unvarnished cruelty. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day, including brave first-responders who poured into the burning Twin Towers, to rescue anyone they could and the heroic souls aboard Flight 93, who raided the cockpit and took down their plane instead of letting it be used to cause more destruction.

We must never forget the lives that were lost, the sacrifice made by so many to save others, the horror of that evil event, or the foundational values we held before that day and are obliged, by our humanity and our sense of purpose as a republic, to continue holding now and into the future. Living those shared values ensures the eternal flame of liberated humanity continues to light the way.

The event itself was an act of unquestionable evil. There can be no justification for it, nor should anyone look for an explanation. Those who commit such acts forfeit any claim on the right to be understood. What we cannot afford to do, however, is to ignore the fact that they had goals that included the destabilization of free societies, in service of a totalitarian cult of dehumanizing and violent extremism.

Before September 11, 2001, it would have been unthinkable that such an event could happen, but it would have been even more unthinkable that we might surrender the very rights and freedoms we defend, for any reason. The horrific violence of that day was a trap, intended to provoke us into surrendering to the idea that violence is the answer, that otherness should be punished, that our freedoms are not worth our sacrifice.

Many of us continue to grieve for those we lost, as we should. Many of us continue to feel profound anger and frustration that such an act was possible at all. To honor those lost, and those who sacrificed that others might have a chance at survival, and those who went into harm’s way in the decades since, hoping to protect the rest of us, we must honor the fundamental values that make our republic a land of free people.

• All human beings are created equal.
• Human rights are inherent, universal, and unalienable.
• No power can retain legitimacy that seeks to degrade or dismiss the human rights of any person.
• Our founding laws restrict executive power and require the consent of the governed.
• We have worked for two and a half centuries to export that model to the world.
• Through international cooperation and development aid, we have done that.
• Our personal freedom of speech, thought, worship, and publication belongs to everyone.
• We are free together, or we are not free.

True American patriotism is welcoming. We elevate the memory of everyone lost 25 years ago today, and in the years since, and who has served our republic with honor and generosity of spirit, by upholding those self-evident truths and foundational values, for the benefit of people we do not know, and whose circumstances are different from our own.

I remember the stillness of the air on that morning, the sun shining without giving heat, the odd feeling that we had been removed from the flow of time, as it became impossible to reach people we loved. I knew people who died, who were lost for hours or days, and who have lasting respiratory health impacts, and other forms of trauma, from that day and what followed. I know people whose job was to tend to the needs of grieving families and others who sacrificed their own safety to fight for the innocence the attack aimed to extinguish.

The heart rejects the very idea that we can rise above something like that. We tell ourselves we should stay inside of the moment, harbor the darkness of it, to honor the cherished people and sacred innocence that was lost. But the best proof of our devotion to those people, to those more innocent younger selves, and to each other, is to recommit to open civics.

We are an open society, a free society, a place where any person can seek refuge, pursue improbable dreams, and find comfort in communities that learn, evolve, grow, and change. This is our strength. We must hold onto it; it is our eternal flame. We rescue each other by recognizing the fundamental, transcendent, and irreducible humanity of all people; in that way, we make our republic a haven from evil and a light in the darkness.