Lebensunwertes Leben: The Call of the Right Wing

Life Unworthy of Life was a slogan used by the Nazi regime to identify those who them deemed not suited to live and use up resources in the new society they were building.  Far more sinister than even the Untermensch appellation which deemed some as subhuman, it did not even see those they classified ad Lebensunwertes Leben as useful as slaves to their war machine.  In what may be the most evil propaganda efforts in history, the German government convinced many people to kill or have killed loved ones who were mentally ill, had debilitating diseases or just were considered inferior.  There is even a film made of a great pianist who is diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis who commits suicide for the good of the state.  Later the killings became compulsory and as the country became more comfortable with death for the greater good of the country we see the Shoah (Holocaust) as the last step.  It started with the idea that some people need to be sacrificed in order for the state to survive and thrive.  

This bone-chilling idea took hold in the modern country of Germany in the middle of the 20th century because it made sense to many who felt they were betrayed by previous government actions after World War I and the notion that outside forces were driving Germany into a perpetual depression and using its systems to support people who were not adding to greatness of the nation.  Terms like useless eaters were used to describe large numbers of human beings.  Sometimes this notion even stretched to include people who were elderly and frail.  People who could no longer work or fight for the country.  Germany created a vision that made some people should not be saved, and in fact should be gotten rid of to allow the country to grow.  

That idea seems to have returned in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Not in Germany, not in a developing nation, but right here in the United States.  Several members of the political right have stated publicly either through their own media outlets or through social media that they think the elderly and by extension anyone with a condition that could be exacerbated by the virus should be willing to die to protect the economy.  Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas said that he and those in his age bracket would be willing to die to avoid passing on debt to their grandchildren.  I have heard others say such things.  I haven't seen the polling data but everyone I know over 65 is willing to stay at home and not risk death because.......they love their grandchildren and want to spend as much time with them as they can.  

Ben Shapiro, a person who voices a lot of the right wing talking points in smug podcasts and through fringe media said this:  "If somebody who is 81 dies of COVID-19, that is not the same thing as somebody who is 30 dying of COVID-19...If grandma dies in a nursing home at age 81, that's tragic and it's terrible, also the life expectancy in the United States is 80".  For Ben it appears that it fine for an 81 year old to die of this terrible and painful disease for a chance to go out to eat or get a haircut.  They say it is to keep the economy intact and I already pointed out the hypocrisy of this position while maintaining women shouldn't be allow to get abortions to protect their economic security.  But this hypocrisy goes even further.  When the ACA, commonly referred to as Obamacare, had a provision for end of life therapy being covered the right wing noise machine and their noise makers in Congress called these death panels.  Ben was always on right wing shows saying it was an attempt to ration care for the elderly and the infirm and called it evil.  Now they say things like an 81 year old should be thankful for the years, one more than expected, and should just leave the stage. 

Then there is Jacob Wohl, a young man who is going to prison for securities fraud and who has paid people to lie about affairs with many people including Dr. Fauci was talking about the Corona virus death toll being about 1 percent.  "So what if we lose 400,000 people?  That 200,000 elderly and the other 200,000 are the bottom of society.  You have to clean out the barn. If it's real it is a good thing, for God's sake."  This is the spirit of Lebensunwertes Leben.  The Nazi idea that some must be killed for greater good of the nation.  He says it is a good thing that 400,000 people die.  

 If only they were the only voices, but more and more we hear it on radio, the internet and on at least one major television news station.  People are dying because of the incompetence of the President, and now voices are saying that is it a good thing that they are.  Covid-19 will kill people, lots of them.  Staying home and physical distancing will lower the number of deaths because we won't overwhelm the healthcare system.  We will buy time to find a real treatment and save lives.  We will eventually get to a time when it can be dealt with by treatment and/or vaccine.  But until then we shouldn't have to choose to kill people because someone can't get their hair colored or a massage or enough beef.  That is not just nonsense, it is a call we have heard before, it creates the idea that some human beings are not worthy to fight for them to live.  That is not a direction as a culture we should feel comfortable going.  That is not something we should give voice.