Note to Dan Patrick: STFU, Or Go First

Those of you who have grandchildren: Would you take a bullet for them? Would you step out in front of a Mack truck?

I have little doubt that you would. So let's get that straight right off the bat.

The question is why. Of course you would do it because you've lived a full and (relatively) happy life; that you have lived long enough to see your children get married (regardless of the status of that marriage now) and have kids; and you know that your prodigy will be continued.

If it was a matter of you dying rather than them, and you knew it instinctively, you'd do it in your last heartbeat. It's very basic. It's love. It's dignity. It's pride.

What if it was a matter of wondering whether your grandchildren would end up poorer than you, and you absolutely knew it? That's what Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick said the other day. He said you'd walk into a room filled with coronavirus victims, take several good, deep breaths, and lay down for a few days until you died a terrible death from asphyxiation, all to save your prodigy from discomfort.

You see, I guess there's no chance of them ever recovering from the economic disaster that 45 wants to foist upon most of us unless there's a few less of us among whom to spread whatever aid is coming from Congress. I guess they're about as helpless as our parents were in recovering from the Depression of the 1930s.

Wait, you say: We did recover from that. Okay, it took a national effort to reconstruct industry, but World War II provided us with that. Otherwise, it would have taken a lot longer. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't have happened. It doesn't mean that the thing you're only too happy to discuss under normal circumstances, hard work and ingenuity, wouldn't have brought us through.

Good old American know-how and work ethic? I guess that's inadequate. I guess Dan Patrick has concluded that tomorrow really isn't the kind of day we'd look forward to. He's taking the easy way out: Suggesting that grandparents are sufficiently done with their lives, and it's time to die now.

Did that enter the conversation in the 1930s? My study of history didn't suggest that, although there was a time when weeding out the inadequate was in vogue. But the Nazis did that. We fought a war, and a number of us are buried in Europe, to prove that every person has a right to life and liberty, to live as long as they wished in freedom. There are a few left who did that. My dad is one of them.

So Johnny and Susie won't be seeing Nana and Gamps anymore because they've committed suicide--but it's for them, so it's okay. The situation, you see, is unusual. There's this virus amongst us, and we know that some of us won't get past it. So Mr. Tough Guy says it's time to cash in the chips if you have grandkids, that your lives won't last that much longer anyhow, that there's little effect you can have on anybody. I mean, it's a tradeoff, right?

Okay, Mr. Tough Guy: You go first. You give up your life. Go ahead. We'll see, then, if it has the economic effect you said it would. We'll get back to you on the other side--whatever that is, wherever that is.

Oh, wait, you say. We'd have to have a whole bunch of oldsters tanking to have that kind of effect? The mantle of leadership still hasn't changed, dude. You're still the lieutenant governor of one of our largest states. What better example would it be for you to get a whole bunch of us in a room and spray it with coronavirus (I'm sure it could be arranged; there's enough of it out there), and party until we fell? That is, if you joined us? Or would it be a very selective Sodom and Gomorrah, with you obviously in charge of the selection?

Now that you've run your mouth, we'll see if you can back it up. Otherwise, shut the fuck up. I know you won't, since I was once a citizen of your state and while I was there, you didn't say one damn thing that made any sense, anyhow. What you've just said was an example of the virulent nonsense you've been piled upon Texans for several years.

There's another way of accomplishing what you say you want: To pretend that the virus isn't that big of a deal. That's what 45, in his tunnel-visioned, profit-making stupidity, wants when he says that he'd love it if the economy just got back to being normal at Easter time--and if the churches were filled for Easter services.

He wants to use the risen Christ as a metaphor. But he won't, or at least, he'll look pretty stupid if he does (not that that's ever stopped him). The disease will be rushing over all of us just about then. He'll have to fire his medical advisors because they're not going to tell him what he wants to hear--as if the virus will be stopped or diminished just because he wants it to be.

Liberty University is calling its students back to classes. I guess we'll see if all this was a hoax, a politically-manipulated effort to take 45 out of office. Or if he'll just do it himself by getting dullards killed because they followed the pied piper off the cliff, as he watched and then (you can bet) blaming someone else instead of his own disgusting example.

These are sick people. They don't need a virus to prove it. And, God help us, they're in charge.

Be well. For heaven's sake, be careful. With luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark