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OPINION
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The Limits of Caring

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
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AP Photo/John Hanna

In this holiday season, we are supposed to care about our fellow man, and that is not a bad thing. It’s good to care, in a general sense. But what does caring mean exactly? Is it simply posing, or pursuing actual policies and outcomes? There is a lot of care-posing going on, people being seen to care without cost or effort. And there is care-shaming too. Palesimpians get fussy when you shrug as Israel crushed Gaza in its righteous wrath over the rape and slaughter of 1,200 of its people, demanding that you care about the people who elected, support, and often are the killers. Well, I can honestly say I care as much about the Palestinians as the Palestinians do about themselves.

Caring has been hijacked from what it should be – a concern for your fellow man that leads to concrete actions – into a weapon designed to force you to forgo your own interests by signing on with approved objects of caring designated by our opponents. You are compelled to care about everyone on the Leftist Hierarchy O’ Oppression, and with an intensity that corresponds to the recipient of said caring’s position within that ever-morphing ranking. For instance, men pretending to be women are at the lofty heights of that chart. According to the curators of caring, we are required to care intensely about their feels and all the rest of their baggage. The desire of some guy pretending to be a gal to have us all pretend he is a she is vitally important – you must care and therefore support, politically and otherwise, whatever they demand. But caring is not a two-way street. Neither we nor the aforementioned transpeople are required to care a whit for, say, the women who have to give up their privacy and their ability to win at sports. In fact, to care about the victims of trans stupidity is actively evil within their paradigm. Which is, of course, why we should reject their paradigm. We cannot let caring become a cudgel or we become serfs, forever morally indebted to people who became caring creditors because a bunch of pinkos and their academic and wine woman allies have decreed it. 

Caring itself is not bad, but the current application of the concept is. It is emotional blackmail, a demand that you concede and obey by placing concern for X above concern for Y, with X being whatever the left says it is today and X being you. People who care about nothing at all are bad, but here’s the thing – we must reject the demand that we care corresponding to the hierarchies the commie impose and start caring as we care to care once again. 

And we must do it only to the extent we choose to do so. The well of caring is not bottomless. You cannot care about everything equally, nor is it reasonable to expect you to. Yeah, the Palestinians of Gaza are suffering. To the extent you choose to care about that – and I refuse to care more about the Palestinians than the Palestinians do – those who find your caring insufficient should explain precisely what you will care less about so you can make room for the Palestinians’ self-created suffering. The kids in the Congo mining rare earth metals so fashionable libs in Manhattan can be smug about us not letting Americans mine them cleanly here? How about Uighurs? Maybe the Nigerian Christians the local jihadis are killing? Just kidding about that – you are not allowed to care about Christians just like you are not allowed to care about Jews.

The presumption of the caring curators is pretty startling. It is always interesting to get on social media and to see the spastic reactions when you state that you care more about American lives than about the lives of foreigners. “What, are you saying a non-American’s life is worth less than an American one?” they huff. Well, yes. See, I’m American. I’m not a foreigner. I care about American lives infinitely more than about enemy lives. It’s not even close. Foreigners have their own countries that can care about them. I care about my people, particularly our military folks. Would General Schlichter do what the Israelis do and put their own people at massive risk to keep down Palestinian casualties? Nope? Why? Because American lives are more important than the lives of the enemy, including their civilians. If it's them or us, I propose it be them. Moral posing means dead GIs, and I will not have it. I notice the people who insist our rules of engagement increase the risk to our people in order to keep the enemy’s populace safe are rarely those with skin in the game or kids in uniform – neither Ashleigh nor Kaden are walking point anywhere but on the Quad heading over to their decolonialization seminar at the University of College.

It’s not even an issue whether the enemy will reciprocate. They won’t. Caring reciprocation is not a thing. We are expected to unilaterally care, but no one cares for us. In fact, caring for us – even considering our interests – is proof of the evil lurking inside you. The populist Republicans – it’s not a very apt term but you get what I mean – are hated by the establishment precisely because their agenda upends the Officially Approved Caring Matrix. The populists care about normal Americans who are sick of crime and illegal aliens and stupid wars where our people die for little or nothing. But caring about these things makes these politicians – and these Americans – bad in the eyes of an establishment that cares about other stuff for its own reasons. Remember when Mitch McConnell got up and announced that Ukraine was the GOP’s Number One priority? Well, it’s not mine, and it’s not yours. Look, I care about the Ukrainians because I think they have been wronged and I worked with them, but there is only so much I can care for at one time. Ukraine is down the list. Maybe it’s a worthy recipient of my caring, but I only have so much caring to spread around. You cannot care passionately about everything or you effectively care about nothing. I choose to care about the American people, their safety and security and prosperity. I choose to care about foreigners to a lesser extent.  I choose not to care at all about people based on their immutable characteristics or their bizarre fetishes. And if you don’t like it, I don’t care.

Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get his eighth book in the Kelly Turnbull People's Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, Overlord, out now! 

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