One of the most difficult things for me to accept lately is that people seem to allow death to not matter to them. They seem to accept decisions that are being made, rather than challenge them.
I can’t understand the people who stood by and watched poor leadership decisions being made. I would have challenged anyone in any position of power to be compassionate and to make decisions that can save lives. I would have gladly lost my job in the small chance that I could inspire some kindness and compassion in decision-makers.
This is concerning about the future of the United States. We claim and hold up democracy as an ideal for the world, yet what have we done with it? We have perverted it with an obsession with capitalism and power to the exclusion of justice and morality. I don’t like talking about morality. We need something more than ethics though. We need something that shows a line that should not be crossed. The line of respecting people’s lives and working for everyone’s benefit is one that we should always keep in mind.
Yet we don’t. We are so greedy that we don’t have healthcare for everyone and we make being healthy a luxury and not a right. It makes me angry that we say we care about “truth, justice, and the American way” but I don’t see it. I see that we care about money, power, and the rich way. We need to either make healthcare a right or give up the idea that we are more virtuous than other countries. We are less virtuous when we don’t have healthcare, and don’t give opportunity to everyone.
I am angry. I am angry that we have so many deaths when we could be like other countries and have less. I am angry that people in power have such hatred for the average person. I am angry that I can’t do more to fix this. Every death has to matter to us, or we have traded our humanity for temporary gain.