Article note: I'm not sure that 9/11 started it, but it certainly did illuminate to a large swath of politicians that "Fear + Bullshit = Power" is a winning strategy.
I invented nothing new. I simply assembled the discoveries of other men behind whom were centuries of work. Had I worked fifty or ten or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready and then it is inevitable. To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.