Missionaries who fall ill from deadly diseases, such as the American doctor who contracted the Ebola virus in West Africa, should not return to the United States and should have to “suffer the consequences,” Donald Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Dr. Kent Brantly, who had been treating Ebola patients in Liberia, West Africa, flew to Atlanta on Saturday for treatment at Emory University Hospital after he contracted the disease. While missionaries who served in other countries were “great people,” Trump said the United States had enough problems without having the threat of the spread of Ebola.
“They’re tremendous people. But they have to suffer the consequences. They go and they try and help other people, but things like this happen,” the real estate and entertainment mogul said. “Our country’s in trouble. We cannot afford to have another epidemic in this country.”
Trump created a firestorm when he shared the sentiment on Twitter. While admitting on Monday that “on a humanitarian basis” he didn’t like taking the position, he said some people were “strongly in favor” of his tweets, while others opposed them.
Here’s what Trump’s tweets said:
The U.S. must immediately stop all flights from EBOLA infected countries or the plague will start and spread inside our “borders.” Act fast!
And:
The fact that we are taking the Ebola patients, while others from the area are fleeing to the United States, is absolutely CRAZY-Stupid pols
Trump is absolutely right.
Your reaction to his comments is a good test of whether you agree with the ideology that we are all our brothers’ keepers.
If you’re prepared to abide by the principle that self-sacrifice is an individual’s primary purpose in life, then I’ll at least respect you for consistency when you disagree with Trump’s comments. (Of course, if you really believe this, then why aren’t you over in Liberia ministering to people with horrible diseases?)
The fact of the matter is: Missionaries knowingly take on this risk when they go into other countries to treat people without the benefits of civilization. While they should be free to take that risk, they should also suffer the consequences, as Trump states. They should not be able to impose the consequences of their judgments and decisions on the rest of us.
Let’s be real. The doctors who go overseas to treat Ebola-infected patients know what they’re getting into. They know better than the majority of us who are medical laypersons.
Whoopi Goldberg responded to Trump’s comments by pointing out that Ebola isn’t so easy to contract. She says she’s a good friend of Donald Trump, but called his comments stupid and told him to “do his homework.”
Goldberg misses the point. The precise nature of the Ebola virus isn’t what sparked the firestorm over Trump’s tweets. The point relates to morality, not to medical disease: That people should be responsible for their own ideological viewpoints. When those viewpoints have potentially life-or-death consequences, including the physical safety of other people, then it’s irrational, immoral and wrong to foist the consequences of those views on innocent others who did not make the same decisions.
The strongest advocates of brother’s keeperism claim to feel nothing but compassion for others. That’s certainly not how one reaction to Trump’s comments went:
I hope Donald Trump gets Ebola.
No, I don’t want the guy to die. That would be a breach of taste. Furthermore we would be deprived of a great source of entertainment and thus, copy. But think of how fun it would be to envision Trump experiencing the following symptoms: Fever; Headache; Joint and muscle aches; Weakness; Diarrhea; Vomiting; Stomach pain; Lack of appetite
So I hope Trump gets Ebola, but lives. The mortality rate for those infected with the disease typically ranges between 50% and 90%, but with Trump’s money and easy access to top-notch medical care, the odds will certainly be in his favor. [Michael Luciano, thedailybanter.com 8/1/14]
This is typical of the sort of “compassion” displayed by advocates of brother’s keeperism for those who disagree with them, in my experience. It seems reasonable to speculate that something other than compassion and empathy is motivating such people.
Even Trump doesn’t go so far as to question the ideology of self-sacrifice on which the actions of the missionary doctors was based. Notice that he refers to them as “tremendous people.” This suggests that he agrees with the widely held notion that people who sacrifice themselves for others are the epitome of virtue.
Yet if that’s true, then we should not only be welcoming the infected doctors and missionaries home; we should be throwing them a ticker tape parade. And we ought to be inviting everyone from other nations who are ill, sick and destitute into our country, free of charge and with no requirements to work, if they can’t or don’t want to. But then again, that’s pretty much what we’re already doing, isn’t it?
In Trump’s mind, based on his comments, there’s a conflict between what’s “humanitarian” or moral versus what’s practical. He’s reluctantly siding with the practical.
This is where he got it wrong, for sure. Survival, not self-immolation, is the essence of morality. If people adopted a morality of rationality and survival in place of selfless sacrifice to others, there would actually be a lot less “need” for humanitarianism and charity in the first place.
Maybe that’s what bothers the self-conscious and self-proclaimed humanitarians attacking Trump, most of all.
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