While scrolling the front page of Reddit recently, I came across two posts with completely different messages. The first upset me a bit because it reflected how cold and uncaring people can be, and the other renewed my faith that there are indeed amazing people still out there.
The first post came from a Libertarian oriented subreddit and it’s message was similar to this posts title. The idea is that grandma died because you went out to socialize during a pandemic, but that’s the price of living in a civilized society.
Hold up. How in the world is a society civilized if it shrugs it’s shoulders for negligently killing his/her/anyone’s grandma? That’s nonsense.
I can see where the author was going. It’s the whole slippery slope argument. You know, the one right wingers like to apply to their gun rights, but never to a woman’s body autonomy. Yeah, that one.
While most of the examples provided were like comparing apples to hand grenades, the only one worthy of commenting on is the banning of alcohol. The author asked if we should ban alcohol because people drink to excess, drive, and kill people. My answer is no, of course not, but we do punish people for taking the unnecessary risk of driving while intoxicated that result in loss of life.
Do you think the individual spewing this hot garbage would agree we should charge people with homicide if his risky bar hopping behavior could be linked to a Covid-19 death? Nah. All he wants is validation for his selfish behavior, and based on the comments, he found it in a subreddit with people who think just like him.
All riled up from the egregious self-interest, I soon stumbled upon a video post of Alex Trebek (the same one featured in this article). Apparently Alex never taped a farewell, so this intro ended up being one of his last taped episodes.
In it, he ends with the following words:
“I’d like you to open up your hands and open up your heart to those who are still suffering because of Covid-19. People who are suffering through no fault of their own. We’re trying to build a gentler, kinder society, and if we all pitch in just a little bit, we’re gonna get there.”
This is the kind of civilized society I yearn for, and in our current Covid-19 situation, one that only takes a tiny bit of thoughtfulness and temporary inconvenience to demonstrate compassionate humanity.
Jeopardy! (2021, January 4). A Message From Alex Trebek: The Season of Giving | JEOPARDY! [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/bO7FQsCcbD8
