We’re Better Than This

Most of us are decent and kind people, yet we live in a society that increasingly takes a joke like this and turns it into real life:

There are two people in a wood, and they run into a bear. The first person gets down on his knees to pray; the second person starts lacing up his boots. The first person asks the second person, “My dear friend, what are you doing? You can’t outrun a bear.” To which the second person responds, “I don’t have to. I only have to outrun you.”

How should we regard the meme here, other than accept the shame that we Americans so richly deserve for our callous indifference to the suffering of others?

What’s worse, in this case, it’s self-defeating.  You don’t care that tens of millions of people have no access to healthcare?  You will soon.

We’re better than this.