As rioters and demonstrators continually take to the streets in major U.S. cities as if it’s their literal job now (okay, it probably IS for plenty), ordinary working schmucks like me can’t help but wonder: How on earth do they find the time? What a life of leisure these people must have, with the luxury of apparently sleeping during the day and being able to go out every night and raise hell for the "cause." I certainly couldn’t afford to do it, and you probably couldn’t either. I mean, looting may put a flatscreen or three on the table now and then, but it’s hard to imagine even that being able to replace a steady paycheck. But there they are, night after night, giving America a daily visual lesson on why we should never put their ilk in power.
But then I thought, wait, even if it’s not George Soros paying them, the government probably is. Sure, some have real jobs, maybe, but just spitballing here - plenty are probably getting some sort of unemployment check because of the COVID stimulus packages. Despite the fact that thousands of companies across the country are desperate for good help these days as they try to ramp back up, it’s simply too easy to stay on the dole. Simply “apply” for a bunch of jobs, then don’t show up for the interview and you’re golden for another week of free cash and nightly hijinks.
I’m doing some speculating and generalizing, of course. Obviously there are exceptions, and I’m definitely not knocking the folks who really do work hard, play by the rules, and choose to demonstrate peacefully after work during daylight hours, even if I think there are precious few facts to back up their cause. Certainly, there is a time and a place to make one’s voice heard on issues that are important. Lockdown protesters did it in Michigan and other places, but then again they got more leftist condemnation for ONE DAY than these BLM rioters have gotten for three months straight.
All of which brings us to the subject of what we’re celebrating today - work! Without it, obviously, it’s hard to imagine anything of all that much use to society getting done, and it’s easy to imagine plenty of value getting destroyed. That’s what we’re doing, or allowing to be done, with Western civilization these days, and frankly, if people had less time on their hands it’s hard not to imagine things not being better. Human beings should be working, providing for our families, serving others, learning, teaching, and building a civilization and a culture that will endure when we are long gone. The ability to work, to provide for our own and help others we choose to help, is almost as critical to human existence as breathing. Not only does it connect us to our part in this amazing, interconnected economy that allows us all to obtain the material things we need for life and its enjoyment, it also gives us the psychologically comforting knowledge that others rely on us, that we have a purpose.
Of course, it’s no coincidence that one of the most significant times of social upheaval has come in the midst of one of the greatest government-created disasters in history. Our overblown response to coronavirus took life-sustaining work away from far too many people for far too long. Millions of people, from business owners to front line workers, were essentially told by their government that their jobs were so counterproductive, so purposeless, so ... “nonessential,” that society would rather PAY THEM TO SIT AT HOME than to actually do their jobs and earn their living by the proverbial sweat of their own brows. In retrospect, how sick is that? There are certainly greater blows to one’s sense of self-worth, but not many. Someday, when history gets some real perspective on this tragic era, the deliberate refusal to allow millions of Americans to pursue their livelihoods will be clear for what it was - pure evil.
Take the African-American community, for example, a group sadly among those hardest hit in every possible way. Before the coronavirus panic began, black unemployment sat at historically low levels. Now it languishes in the teens. Restaurant and service industry workers, a significant percentage of whom are minorities, were basically told “your job isn’t important,” then given an extra $600 per week in federal unemployment on top of what the states already granted. It was every leftist’s wet dream times ten, millions of Americans on the government teat. And most, sadly, were deceived as to the overall lethality of coronavirus and thus supported the lockdowns not because of reality, but because the governments that implemented them essentially PAID THEM OFF.
Now, idleness being the devil’s workshop and all that, thousands upon thousands of people, most if not all of whom have plenty to eat and a warm place to live, are finding other, uh, less productive things to do with their time. They demand what others have, and they destroy what others built.
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh nailed the tragic irony in June with this tweet: “If you’ve been protesting ... because you don’t have to work or contribute to society and yet are still able to live in comfort, the system you seek to destroy is the very one that enables you to live that way. Take the system down and that easy life of yours goes with it.”
I can’t help but think that our societal problems aren’t caused by “systemic racism,” or “the patriarchy,” or capitalism, or “white privilege,” or any of the other nonsensical non-issues leftists trot out to try to fool people into accepting their sick, twisted “solutions.” No, the answer, or at least AN answer, is a lot simpler than all that - more people just need to get back to some good old-fashioned, productive, life-sustaining WORK!
Follow Scott on Twitter @SKMorefield and Parler @smorefield.