Sometimes crises bring out the best in us, and sometimes not

Last week I listened to the Governor of Kentucky state that their latest victim of the COVID-19 had contracted the virus at a Corona Virus Party.

I was struck by how stupid and selfish attending a party like that, let alone hosting it, could be.

Then I remembered the myriad youth attending spring break activities at the beaches in California, Florida, and elsewhere. Or I thought of those who have been photographed intentionally coughing on produce or in the faces of strangers.

I wondered how people could be so self-centered that their shallow and transient enjoyment could trump the safety and health of their families and friends by potentially exposing them to a lethal disease in the middle of a pandemic.

Then I thought to myself, what examples do they have to model their behavior on? Could they maybe look to the folks that happily stripped grocery shelves of items like toilet paper, meat, produce, sanitizer, bleach, and numerous other items?

As an aside, most stores are announcing that they will not be refunding the purchase price of such hoarded items when this crisis is over and those hoarders seek to return the unused surplus. I wonder what the outrage will be from those seeking to get their money back for a two-year’s supply of toilet paper.

However, as always, we have only to look at the examples of our elected leadership both statewide and nationally. We have too many of our leaders grandstanding to promote themselves and further their run for re-election in the fall. I guess that anytime one can get one’s face on the news or be quoted in the media, it is a victory for them. Never mind that silence or ceding the dais to medical and science experts would better serve the public.

And lest we think that the self-serving is only in public, I give you the example of how our national legislative bodies took so long to finalize a bill to rescue families and businesses hit hard by the effects of COVID-19.

The delay was bad enough, but here are some of the items our selfless leaders thought we desperately needed to survive this crisis:

• $300 million for foreign refugees
• $800 million for Endowment for the Humanities and Arts
• $100 million for NASA
• $25 million for cleaning supplies for the Capital Building
• $25 million for additional House of Reps salary.
• A nationwide mandate for ballot harvesting
• An automatic visa extension for all foreign workers
• An expansion of foreign-language ballots
• Same-day voter registration for the 2020 presidential election
• An amnesty for nearly 800,000 DACA illegal aliens

Perhaps you can see better than I what these had to do with helping a small business that is closed because of the virus, or feeding the uncounted millions now out of work. You probably noted the fifth item as absolutely vital to fight this crisis.

With examples like this from our leaders, maybe such behavior as noted in the first paragraph is understandable.