Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

An answer to Dan Patrick’s: There are more important things than living

by Stephen Waller
Third (retired) Rector of St Thomas the Apostle

Beloved in God: Mr. Patrick has stated several times that getting the economy back up and running is more important than the lives of many of us.

I do not recall anywhere in Scripture, where “laying down ones life for one’s friends” has anything to do with saving “an economy.” Perhaps Mr. Patrick has a different Bible with a Gospel which I do not find in the several Bibles which I own.

No one can be unaware that this Covid-19 has taken a toll on the American economy. No one who has half a heart can be insensitive to the incredible damage which the disease has caused in the lives of those we have already lost…and also in the loss of the financial well-being of vast numbers of the members of this nation.

Of course, Mr. Patrick, everyone shares your concern for the economic well-being of America. However, your willingness to suggest out loud that dying for the sake of the economy might be a worthy idea simply stuns reason. What were you thinking?

Opening up the economy by opening up those many businesses which have been closed to protect us from contagion, when science tells us that doing that will worsen the “control” of the virus, makes no sense, sir. Even if your idea that some should die for the sake of the economy had any real value,  I ask, which among us do you want to “go first”?

Are you willing to forfeit your life in the bizarre hope that doing so might help America get back on a safe footing economically? Do you actually, even for one minute, believe that the deaths of many citizens would jump start an economy which is in dire condition? Is the American economy more important to you than the life of even one member of this society? Again, this simply stuns reason, sir.

What kind of nation would this be if our elected leaders thought that the deaths of many of us essential to “saving” America?

Mr. Patrick, with all due respect, your suggestion falls far short of any idea remotely connected with reason. You owe the people of the State of Texas an apology. You have put economic well-being above the lives of those whom you serve.

I, for one, will not forget it when you again stand for election to any public office.