Virtue Signaling in the Waiting Room

By Robert L. Hall I’m with a family member in Memphis who I have brought in for treatment at a hospital. And we’ are in the waiting room. The minutes drag on and across the room, far away (for it is a long hallway) I hear a woman’s voice rise.

Talking about her caring for children at some Catholic school in Memphis… about how some students there are illegal alien children and how they need psychological help because everybody is down on them for being in this country and making them feel not wanted. And how it’s all the president’s fault and how that hateful Trump and his followers are so horrible to the illegals coming across the border.

And I’m sitting there thinking: “My family member just needs a simple test done, but at least she does not need a brain operation like that dolt on the other end of this waiting room.”

The second thought that floated into my mind was that the virtue signaling leftie reminded me exactly of a quotation from a movie I heard years ago.

You probably have heard it: “I’m smart! Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!” screamed Fredo Corleone in The Godfather Part II. “

Fredo Corleone..who was so stupid and loudmouthed that his own brother ordered him to be murdered in order to protect ‘the family.’ Just like that woman was belching out, when she said, “Everyone is down on them for being in this country and making them feel not wanted.”

It was almost the exact sentiment of Fredo’s line.

Well…I WONDER why ‘everybody’ is saying it?

Like, DUHhhhh?

Then, from the same corner, I could hear another woman say, ”Oh, yes that’s so true. The poor little children suffering because of that Trump.”

I mean, the virtue signaling coming out their mouths was making the patients in the waiting room even sicker than they were right then.

These two needed to let up on us before someone starting projectile barfing in the middle of floor. I know it was making me queasy. Like these two had the corner on self-righteousness?

When does the virtue signaling (that is, the demeaning of other holding different opinions and the intolerance or superficial valuing of appearance or actions) stop with these lefties?

Also, this display put me in mind of the scene in the Bible from the Sermon on the Mount, expressed by Jesus so perfectly: “You shall not be as the hypocrites, for. they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the. corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.”

I would add to that, also in the hospitals.

Yet, I could not let this go in my mind. In a previous article I discussed how some like to come up with socialist ideas which they pay for with other people’s money. Works, as long as they have taxpayer dollars to waste. But, how about when they run out of other people’s money?

Then what?

Well I dug a little and came up with some interesting research into the Memphis Catholic School system-one school of which the woman in the waiting room had just directly named as the place she worked and which is a repository for illegal alien children.

It is a two-fold story.

Here goes: Seems that in 2006, $44 million dollars in donations were given for the establishment of a Catholic Memphis Urban School system. Simply put, it was a private trust fund for what they called ‘Jubilee Schools’ and also some inner-city schools (one of which was the one the waiting-room woman had named at the hospital.) Well, also appears that the Catholics thought that was just a grand idea. They thought the future of the Catholic schools in Memphis was assured in perpetuum.

But, lo and behold… here came the flood of illegals pouring into the city… whose parents were poor and who could not afford to pay tuition.

Or what the flaming liberals would euphemistically call, “Changing Demographics.”

And these people didn’t want their children going to those crappy Memphis public schools where you had to learn English.

Oh, and the fact that they didn’t want to pay anything either-not even pennies for school lunches-and wanted their children to go to Catholic schools because of higher academic achievement and…as some would have you to believe, the teaching of the Catholic faith.

Only, I think we can completely dismiss the Catholic faith part in favor of the words, free, FREE, FREE!

Same as folks do when they go to a party with people they don’t particularly like, when the invitation reads, ‘FREE BEER FOR ALL!’ But, you know, those liberals got to keep those delusions going…like the Russian collusion-delusion. Like that.

And oh, the story gets better. You betcha!

Fast forward to an interesting article: “Why are Vouchers only for Shelby County Schools?” on the site: www.tnparents.com published March 15, 2017.

In a meeting in Nashville, school vouchers were discussed, then a motion pushed the discussion back. Suddenly, several speakers took to the floor. One was most interesting. Read on from the article from these lines: “One audience member asked if voucher money paid to private schools would be lost if a student returned to public schools.

After repeating, he did not know how the bill would work, Ramsey got a little testy and responded by saying his focus was on children, not institutions.

(Notice, here again, with liberals it’s always about “The Children?”

“But that might not necessarily be true. Ramsey was quite interested in one institution-the Catholic/ Parochial school system in Memphis. He mentioned Catholic schools several times as a superior alternative to public schools in Memphis. This prompted Shelby County Commissioner, David Reaves, to ask if the true purpose of the Memphis voucher pilot is to subsidize the financially distraught Memphis Jubilee Schools? (i.e., Catholic schools” And the meeting went downhill from there. Everyone (You know…like those pesky ‘Everyone’s’ the waiting-room woman mentioned beforehand) was upset when they found out the Catholic schools had squandered their $44 million on non-paying illegals and now they wanted the State of Tennessee to pay to cough up vouchers for the indigent Mexicans to get even MORE free education… only, this time gratis the TAXPAYERS OF THE STATE! And especially in Memphis… where the 41% delinquency rate for school children for American students is among the highest in the country.

But, hey those are just American kids. But, wait! I thought it was all about ‘The Children?’ I guess American children don’t count to the liberals- just illegal children.

You know, the ones who were dragged thousands of miles across Mexico by their caring parents-the same caring parents who are now bankrupting our system.

For another good read on the subject, try: “The Elephant in the Classroom,” on the site, www.

fairus.org, in which it is estimated that the drain on our educational system is to the tune of $59.2 billion annually. (Yet, they won’t give Trump just $16 billion to build the wall!) You know… maybe, just maybe, THAT might be the reason that everybody is opposed to it? And not because they are mean, or racist, or just plain Trump supporters… you know?

Those ‘Deplorables,’ like Hillary called them.

Only, I didn’t hear any of THOSE FACTS in the hospital waiting room.

But then, all I did was sit and wait…not sit and berate!

Robert L. Hall is a resident of Marion and has a Bachelor’s Degree in music from the University of Memphis and a Master’s Degree from Florida State University. He is the pianist for Avondale Baptist Church and a writer of fiction on Amazon eBooks.