We are Not Really All In This Together

So, I got called back to my second career as a driver for a major car rental company.  Drivers deliver cars to rental locations, take deleted cars from those locations, and deliver deleted cars to dealers and auctions for sale.  While it may seem a menial and unimportant job, it is a necessary one so people, and travelers can have access to a car or truck temporarily.  Like a lot of jobs that governors seem to think are non-essential, imagine what the world would be like without drivers, rental agents, or rental companies.

Like Karen Larson, who writes at the American Thinker today, I am tired of constant assertion that we are All in this together. I go to the store and the the clerk, who is getting a pay check, has a little sign under her name tag with the message "All in this together." But we are not really all in this together.

Larson points out a number of people who were deemed non-essential by the government, but who clearly are essential to the people who use their services. From her hair dresser, to her optometrist and dentist, she wonders how these people will survive as businesses. After all, it is not merely rent that is a problem, but the capitol cost of the very expensive equipment that these specialists have to have to do their work. And then there are the doctors, cardiologists, and other doctors who are getting unemployment checks, but whose patients do not have the use of their services.

I think of all the doctors who have been unable to see patients for the past several months: cardiologists, oncologists, and so many more with patients whose conditions have not been suspended for the time being. Too bad for them. They are not magically improving while waiting to be seen sometime later when the goalposts stop moving. And the physicians — essential to their patients — are sequestered at home, picking up unemployment checks?

As so many have noted, none of these services, or jobs are truly non-essential. If someone is willing to pay for it, it is an essential service to that person. There truly are no non-essential jobs. And we are not really "All in this together" Just as in Animal Farm we are all equal, but some of us are more equal than others.