The "Value" of Christmas

 

We all need Christmas, especially this year.  After a relatively joyless 2020, or at least one in which joy was overshadowed by disease, sacrifice, missed celebrations, and distant families, we need the happiness that comes from the Christmas season even more this year.

But it’s not the lights, the gifts, Santa and his workshop, or some of the other commercialized aspects of the holiday that we need.  It's the center of gravity, the actual reason for the season- Christ himself that we need to help us close out 2020 and begin again with 2021.

COVID infections and illnesses are filling up the ICU beds around the US, with California at 100% of beds filled, and the rest of the country well over 60% use rate on average.  This fact, and the discussion about who should receive the limited number of vaccines first, has again raised the dangerous and evil specter of considering someone’s value to society to determine how we apportion healthcare. 

You may remember it back when Obamacare was being debated, and Sarah Palin was famously mocked for claiming there would be death panels for our elderly.  It was due to the ACA’s mention of end-of-life care*, and the potential requirement for rationing of care in a system which has to allocate scarce medial resources.  While the ACA didn't specifically establish those panels, it makes sense.  Those in charge of the rationing, especially if a universal health care system was to come about, would have to determine who are the haves and have-nots for care.  With people given the power and the responsibility to dole out a somewhat limited commodity of healthcare services, while also reducing costs and improving the level of care, there’s no doubt that someone’s intrinsic value would be a factor in that decision.

And while Palin was criticized, President Obama essentially furthered the idea:

“In 2009, then-president Barack Obama said that “the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there.” He called for “a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place.” The interviewer did not ask him to elaborate, but Obama’s reference to a “difficult” conversation implies his preferred solution to the “problem” of high health spending by chronically ill patients.                                                                                          Source

"A very difficult democratic conversation."  What could that possibly mean?  I can read between the lines with that as well as you can- tough decisions on who we care for.  Fast forward a decade and we have this excerpt from the same article:

“Six years ago, Zeke Emanuel, recently named to Biden’s coronavirus task force (Chanters- he also worked for Obama), famously wrote an essay that The Atlantic entitled “Why I Hope to Die at 75.” In a 2019 interview, he disclaimed responsibility for the article’s title, but not its sentiments. He then asked a provocative question surrounding the elderly: “whether our consumption is worth our contribution.” This naturally raises concerns about the government’s involvement in difficult decisions regarding end-of-life care.”                                                                                                                             Source

He went on to question what the elderly do later in life, in retirement, in their golden years, that is not "meaningful." 

“when I look at what” people over 70 “‘do,’ almost all of it is what I classify as play. It’s not meaningful work. They’re riding motorcycles; they’re hiking. Which can all have value – don’t get me wrong. But if it’s the main thing in your life? Ummm, that’s probably not a meaningful life.” 

 Apparently, he feels that since they aren’t working and paying taxes, or some other completely subjective qualifier, they aren’t of qualitative value to society. 

That’s some of the most BS social awareness PC crap I’ve ever read- a guy advocating for some sort of “Logan’s Run” idea of Carrousel, where folks go for termination after reaching a certain age, himself included.  Not to put words in his mouth, but he’s essentially stating that older people should just die for the greater good of society, or at least not receive required care because they "don't deserve it."

And where does that end?  Sarah Palin was prescient in her warnings, foreseeing a society that no longer reveres and cares not only for its elderly, but the weak and infirm, and the mentally disabled as well.  We already don't care enough about the unborn.  She has her whole heart in this issue, as she has a son with Downs Syndrome.  With my own son being Autistic and dependent on social services, I too have great concerns about such speech.

Who is he to judge?  Who are we to judge?  We’re not.  Not even close, in fact it's just the opposite. 

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82:3-4

If someone was to advocate withholding care from the elderly, or that a person of limited mental capacity wasn’t living a life with meaning and thus deserving of care, I would immediately characterize them as one of the wicked described above- as Godless humans who have a very cold soul, who are no where near any path to righteousness.  Special place in hell as the saying goes.

In my church, and by that I don’t mean my little neighborhood parish we attend, but the entire Catholic Church in the US, has suffered from declining attendance over the past 10 years or more.  Some of it is due to the clergy sex abuse scandal, some due to the stance on gay marriage, some people just gradually drifted away.  It’s happening in other religions as well, but not nearly so great as among Catholics, with 1 in 3 baptized Catholics having left the church, 79% of them leaving before age 23, and 50% of Millennials raised Catholic no longer identifying as Catholic today.

With that loss, there comes a breach in the very foundation of our society, in the moral fiber that makes up our laws, our behaviors, and in how we look upon others in society.  Now don't get me wrong.  I don’t believe that a person has to have religion in their life to be a good and moral person, but I've found that can help center you, make you better aware of the expectations we have of ourselves, of our responsibility to others we live near and encounter, and our need to help maintain that moral fabric of society.  I would say that the earlier quotes regarding care are not coming from any sense of religion, but one of bean-counting liberal "wokeness" that is truly deaf to the cries of those residing in the portions of society that are not like them.

With COVID numbers spiking daily, and our elderly remaining the most vulnerable to it, having the limited supply of vaccines going to them first, along with our front line health care workers, makes tremendous sense.  It is common sense, unless you are like Pres. Obama or Zeke Emmanuel who would rather pose dangerous questions about their value to society.  Why young politicians like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez are first in line for the vaccine is astounding, hypocritical, and pathetic.  I guess it’s like Orwell’s Animal Farm, where some pigs are more equal than others. 

Yes, we need the Christ part of Christmas even more this year, to help us re-center ourselves on what is most important, on Jesus’s universal teachings (ones that are good even if you don’t believe in him as your savior), and on the joy that is a magnificent baby coming into the world.  We need to trust in the promise that comes from Jesus’s birth, that we need not worry as God has his plan and we only need to look to Him in times of doubt and uncertainty.

I will be celebrating His birth here at home, then rushing up to Southern Oregon to see another new baby, our Great Nephew Declan Randal Logan on my wife's side, born the same day as Sarge's progeny's progeny.  His father is active duty Army so I will enjoy sending some lighthearted ribbing  his way.

Merry Christmas everyone- from Tuna, the Missus, Minnow and the Artist.

*later dropped from the final bill