So, helping the blind to see is now a bad thing?
The Gospel of John tells the story of how Jesus Christ cured a blind man. The incident caused a lot of consternation among the Pharisees who, among other things, felt that healing people on the Sabbath was a sin.
Hot Air relates a modern version of the story about a YouTuber who calls himself MrBeast. MrBeast usually offers stunt content about surviving while buried alive or opening an auto dealership. Occasionally he will produce videos for worthy causes, such as a recent one in which he paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 people. He posted some of the reactions of the newly sighted on his channel, all very charming and heart-warming.
Some of the woke do not like the idea that MrBeast did this. Some objected to curing blindness as “ableism.” Others felt that he was a rich guy who was in for the adulation and not for the satisfaction of curing 1,000 people of their blindness.
I took this outrageous outrage more than a little personally.
While I was being emerging from my mother’s womb, over 66 years ago, the doctor attending my birth was a little too enthusiastic with the forceps. As a result, he caused a cataract to form in my left eye. Despite two surgical procedures when I was two, the doctors were unable to fix the problem. I am legally blind in my left eye.
Mind, I can function pretty well, even drive if I need to. But certain professions were closed to me, including big league ball player, jet fighter pilot, astronaut, and so on. I always sucked at sports that involved the throwing, hitting, and catching of balls, not pleasant in a society that values athletic ability,
My lovely and gracious wife works to help blind people for the Great State of Texas. She finds the idea of curing blindness being a bad thing astonishing. She suffers from low vision, though she can get around pretty well.
Personally, I would recommend MrBeast for a Nobel Prize for turning YouTube into an instrument of philanthropy. And as for the wokesters who attack him, I would only wish that they would take themselves somewhere quiet place, isolated from decent folk, and think about their bad decisions in life.
Oh, and if MrBeast could find someone who can restore sight to my left eye, I will willingly and enthusiastically dance a jig for his YouTube camera.
Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and energy policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond, and, most recently, Why is America Going Back to the Moon? He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.
