In “God” we Trust
In “God” we Trust
Last night, a dear friend for whom I have a great deal of respect shared the post below on Facebook. My friend favors small government, and usually I agree with him. This turned my stomach, and I never even read the article attached.
The quote is in response to the outrage caused by those who suggest that saving our economy is worth the lives we may lose by lifting stay-at-home orders and going back to business as usual.
This is my response:
I understand your theories and opinions regarding small government and I hope that by now, you realize that I have so much respect for you. So please read this knowing that my anger is directed at a accumulation of the toxic waste left behind by American Capitalism.
It’s taking all of my strength to not swear, so bear with me.I had to step away from Facebook last night after reading the quoted part of this post. I don’t even have the stomach to read the attached article.First, it’s not my grandmother. It’s me, and all the other people with primary immune disease. It’s Drew, the man I hope to marry, and all the other diabetics. It’s my parents, my cherished friends, and millions of other people like us, many of whom are children who are alive right now, and are prime candidates for dying by this virus.“…. they are imagining some point in the future when an unknown number could die from increases in child and domestic abuse, addiction and overdose, unmet medical needs, suicide, and so on.”So, if I am understanding this correctly, we are willing to sacrifice the lives of actual living, breathing people with names and birth dates, in exchange for “imagined” people who UP TO THIS POINT, this country, and especially this administration, hasn’t given a flying fig about. The same people who are scapegoated every time we want to cut social programs so that we can hand billionaires bigger tax breaks.The people suggesting this aren’t the “skeptics.” Skeptics are people like me who read this swill and want to vomit. These people are just getting more clever in their manipulation of language, logic. Just like megachurch pastors, they identify a few key words and phrases that they know will inflame the passions of people like you whose intentions are good. They manipulate “believers” into believing that their hypocritical agendas are logical and for the greater good, when all they really give a 🤬 about is their bank accounts.There is a reason all of our currency has “In God We Trust” printed on it. It’s because the only god our country worships is the Almighty Dollar.
Standing ovation!
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Here in Canada we do care about money but only because we have rent and mortgages to pay that is our number one priority when it comes to money and then the rest of the bills are secondary. But our ultimate concern is the people we love most lives or dies. And if all the world leaders were on the same page and giving all the right information then North America wouldn’t be having this epidemic or pandemic. But then what do I know I am just a Canadian….
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You are exactly right, I think. People who advance these theories about re-opening the economy at the sacrifice of others’ lives are often trying to diminish how bad it seems by making it about “grandparents”. If I had living grandparents, I wouldn’t be putting them out there to die – but it is about so many, many more people (like you rightly said). Their argument is a veiled way of saying “we’ll just lose some old people that were going to die anyway, so that’s not so bad”. Disgusting.
@thediarymaster One went so far as to say, “they’re too expensive, anyway.”
@oniongirl oh for heaven’s sake! To all those people I’d like to say “wait until you’re that age and we will see how you feel then” 🙂
@thediarymaster Or disabled! I didn’t become disabled through any fault of my own. I put myself through college and had worked non-stop from the age of 18 until the Friday before my stroke.
It’s not just the old and frail at risk. It’s everyone. Things happen. Anyone in the world could end up like me.
@oniongirl yes exactly!
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You are correct
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There may be a cost, a very high economic cost, to saving lives.
The alternative, though,
the act of choosing to abandon fellow human beings,
of condemning them to death through pure self-interest,
because the price to save them is considered too dear,
all that costs us is our humanity.
I had thought we, as a people, had grown beyond such base animal instincts and developed a moral code that recognizes the inherent and incalculable value of every human life.
I was wrong. It breaks my heart to see the proof.
@cobalt 😢
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You can’t do that — lift the stay at home thing! By George! Does he want more ppl dead?! O_O
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Yeah, I side with you. I understand the importance of all of the things mentioned, but unfortunately, right now, we are dealing with a virus we just don’t know enough about, which is taking a bunch of lives. It’s a great opportunity to rethink our systems, which were flawed to begin with. Almost nobody I know is happy with their job, spending most of their lives doing something they don’t even enjoy, and to live paycheck-to-paycheck? What we had wasn’t working anyway, so lets all think of new ways to do this. For instance, it’s become clear that plenty of people are able to do their work from home, which also saves companies money on rent. Let’s start over, because what we had before all of this wasn’t sustainable. And meanwhile, we stay home to save lives, lives of people of all ages (like it’s been scientifically and medically proven), as well as the lives of older people, who matter too. Sorry, Facebook sometimes makes me sick, too. My advice is: don’t spend too much time on there.
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I completely agree with you. It’s disgusting that some people are choosing the economy over the lives of living, breathing people.
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