By John F. Di Leo –
The nation’s reaction to the current CCP Virus epidemic has been fascinating.
It has revealed an impressive ability of many businesses to adjust their operations at a moment’s notice. It has demonstrated the great advantages offered by modern technology as tools like Microsoft Teams, Webex, GoToMeeting and Facebook Live have enabled employees and students to move their tasks from office to home. It has shown the flexibility of the logistics network as we switched over to home delivery at a moment’s notice. It has reminded the world, once again, of the huge generosity of the American people, as Americans make homemade masks and scarves, donate money and food to the needy, and generally rise to the occasion as only Americans do.
But it has also revealed such inherent cancers as individual viciousness – see how the self-righteous demonize those who don’t agree with the establishment line on dealing with it. It has revealed a tyrannical impulse in many governors, mayors and other politicians. And it has revealed some incredible hypocrisy in our body politic.
Stay Home and Save Lives!
The new motto is “Save Lives!” We see it repeated on facebook memes, in public service ads, in speeches and press conferences by mayors and governors.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for example, is running commercials on television, saying “Stay home and save lives!” – as she straightens the pillows on her couch at home, insisting that she’s saving lives by doing so… and we too can save lives if we just emulate the mayor.
The lighthearted but deadly serious message is that all of us – except the few whom the state deems “essential” – are saving lives by just staying home.
Whether that’s true or not is another matter. Economists know that economic collapses bear a human cost as well; bankruptcy and joblessness lead to increased suicides, fatal heart attacks, alcoholism, drug abuse, and more.
So, yes, we are committed to saving the lives of the few who might have caught the worst possible case of the CCP Virus if we hadn’t all stayed home. We don’t know whether that’s 1%, or .1%, or .01% of the population, or what. We have no idea. But we do know that we are committed to saving the lives of those who were at risk, whatever the number. And that is admirable.
But the question of the day is… why have we never taken this approach to any other issue?
Save Lives!
We know, for example, that locking up convicted violent criminals saves lives. There isn’t even any doubt about it. Nobody can credibly deny that if you lock away a gang member after he’s committed a drive-by shooting, he won’t be doing any more drive-by shootings as long as he’s in a cell.
So why haven’t the mayors of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles ever run PSA ads with “Lock them up and save lives!” Why isn’t that a thing?
We know that over a million kids per year are killed in abortion clinics. Total innocents; they've never had a chance to do anything wrong, they've never even had a chance to breathe the air or see the world before they're killed.
If we closed them all, there would probably still be some “back alley abortions,” some black market “doctors” who perform the operation in secret for cash, but the number would sure plummet. Instead of over a million American children killed in the womb each year, we could bring that number down to the tens of thousands at least. Closing the abortion mills would save ten million lives over a decade.
So why don’t we see the mayors of those big cities, and the governors of their states, saying “Close the abortuaries and Save Lives” at their press conferences? If they’re truly committed to saving innocent lives, shouldn’t this be the starting point?
Millions of foreigners – from third world countries that lack our civilization, our education, and our healthcare – have entered the United States illegally in recent years.
Some try to assimilate, work hard, and try to become real Americans. But many of them arrive with horrible diseases long-ago eliminated from the United States, spreading them among the American population. Many of these illegals drive on our roads without the slightest interest in obeying our traffic laws, causing car and truck crashes, killing thousands of innocent Americans. Many of these illegals arrive as gang members, or soon join gangs upon arrival; having been raised in corrupt kleptocracies, they are comfortable in the world of organized crime. They push drugs, rob stores, enslave youths in prostitution rings, destroy neighborhoods with their shootouts.
Why don’t the politicians show photos of the children killed on their porches in urban shootings, or pictures of the families dead from car crashes caused by drunk or high illegal drivers, and use the slogan “Close the Borders, and Save Lives!” on their public service announcements?
Well, come to think of it, one side does… but the other side certainly doesn’t.
Hypocrisy is nothing new to politics, but a particularly blatant type is being revealed.
Millions of innocent lives are snuffed out by the practices above – by convicted criminals out on the street, by illegal aliens driving on our roads and pushing drugs in the neighborhoods, by abortionists killing the children of scared, confused and misled mothers in abortion mills and even hospitals.
But these innocent lives aren’t worth saving. The politicians – at least on one side of the aisle – don’t highlight those victims with the “Save Lives” mantra.
Some victims matter, and some victims just don’t.
Don’t say you believe in saving innocent lives, if you only care about the ones at risk on the front page, and you’re happy to forget the ones that the news media, politicians, and pop culture conveniently forget about.
Copyright 2020 John F. Di Leo
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based trade compliance trainer, writer and actor. His columns regularly appear in Illinois Review.
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