Givers, the sick, and the dispossessed
Think about it before you dismiss the next sentence. Never have newspapers and television been so full of good news. Who would have thought it? I didn’t say that the bad news has been diminished. It hasn’t. But example after example is being given in the news of givers — groups and individuals as well — who are attending to the needs of others.
“People who need people are the luckiest people in the world,” chortled Barbara Streisand, quite beautifully, 56 years ago this summer. People who help people are also lucky, if you believe in luck. Some people don’t. They view luck as the meeting of preparedness and opportunity. Currently across our country millions are prepared to receive. That includes the sick, the families of the 48,061 who have died from the coronavirus, and the 26,000,000 who have lost their jobs.
One of the best examples of givers I’ve heard about is Freedom Church in Acworth. This past Tuesday the Marietta Daily Journal reported that Freedom Church has raised $1.6 million to wipe out medical bills of over 1,000 families in Cobb and two nearby counties. I’ve been told by a friend who attends there that the loud music at Freedom “rocks the Highway 41 traffic as it zooms by.” Even so, it must be music that inspires members to love God and serve people. What with the loud music, the majority of the people there are probably on the left side of 50. If that’s the case, it’s younger adults with families who have so commendably committed themselves to being givers. Kudos to them.
Both the sick and the 26,000,000 need our attention and concern. Unfortunately we have been thrown the question, “What’s more important, the economy or lives?” The premise behind this question is flawed. It pits the sick against the 26,000,000. It implies that one can live without commerce, that is, without creating and marketing, buying and selling, and working. It’s commerce that builds ventilators, allows us to purchase medicine, and provides pay for dedicated doctors and nurses. Without commerce, capitalism in action, how can we continue to meet the needs of the sick?
“Stay at home” has undoubtedly checked the spread of the coronavirus. It has also led to the 26,000,000 who are virtually dispossessed and who come overwhelmingly from small businesses. It’s easy to forget that small business is the backbone of our economy. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, there are between 25 and 27 million small businesses in the United States that account for 60 to 80% of all U.S. jobs. Does it take brain surgeon smarts to realize that with so many small businesses shut down the economy will continue to crumble?
Yet, the mayors of Atlanta, Savannah, of other cities, and CNN have blistered Gov. Kemp for his plan for opening up, slowly, our state’s economy. The governor’s critics should be asked if their own incomes have come to a halt. They are among the elites showing contempt for the protesters who cry for the economy to open up. The protesters, however, are refusing to yield to their betters. They probably understand that not all doctors agree with the shutdown strategy, one of the most prominent being Dr. John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University. Ioannidis has stated, “Risks are much lower than has been hyped.”
Many who are not hurting economically are pushing village-guilt on us. Governors and members of Congress are not hurting. The commentariat is not hurting. Speaking of which, why are the glitzy commentators on the networks and cable stations, along with academics and other elites, so critical of the several governors who have begun opening up their states? The bulk of the pro-shutdown group is progressives, Democrats, liberals, socialists, and leftists. Repetitive synonyms, I realize, and their abstract love for the village has blinded them to the concrete reality of individual villagers. That’s why some of us never liked the nicesounding expression, “It takes a village.” It takes more than a village. It takes some individual villagers who are job creators.
Democrats can’t deny that their ideas and policies since the days of Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society have been socialism-lite, or worse. Their presidential candidate Joe Biden is huge on keeping the country closed down, further hindering the dispossessed. It’s not conspiratorial, but reasonable to conclude that a leftist cabal is trying to level what we have so they can build what they want.
Meanwhile as the lockdown rebellion builds, givers like those at Freedom Church will attend to those in need, those so often neglected in our great war.