I write a lot about what we call "virtue signaling." I think that it's one of humanity's worst habits, and I see it done on the Left to such a degree that any time they open their mouth, I expect them to declare a noble stance that they don't really have in their heart of hearts.
What I hate about virtue signaling is the fact that it's easy to do and costs the speaker nothing, at least not at first, but payment is required. Those who foot the bill are usually those who put the virtue signaler in a position to act on the charade, but that's the "at best" aspect. At worst, innocent people are often those who suffer the most.
Case in point, my colleague Rusty Weiss reported on the recent reaction from Australians to the ISIS-inspired shooting that happened in Sydney. Brace your jaw so it doesn't smash into the floor after it cracks the sound barrier on the way down:
During an episode of the ABC's "Politics Now" podcast, host Patricia Karvelas pointed out that the attackers were radicalized and anti-Semitic, to which Tingle interjected, "Their actions are not based on their religion."
Karvelas actually tries to chime in, saying, "absolutely radicalized, these were."
As if the first comment didn't come through, Tingle reiterated that the terrorists and/or their terrorist actions "have got nothing to do with religion."
You must be thinking, "wow, the Australian media is just as ridiculous as the American media," and you'd be right, but it appears there's a lot of this kind of thinking going around in the land down undah. As my friend Sydney Watson, who is Australian, covered in her most recent video, this issue of purposefully ignoring the brutal truth is a mind virus that infects large swaths of the country:
And it's here that we see the true cost of virtue signaling.
It's easy for people like rich progressives, media figures, college leftists, and the entire swath of ideologically left-leaning yahoos to flash their non-racist, morally superior plumage like a peacock trying to prove it's just as, if not more, morally superior than its peers, but at the end of the day, the cost is born by others. In this case, the cost was 15 lives.
That's 15 lives that we can toss onto the ever-growing pile of humanity lost or ruined because leftists were too busy patting each other on the back while they repeated "diversity is our strength" ad nauseum.
I used to pose the question to the Left, "How much blood needs to be spilled before you feel like you've sufficiently proved you're not racist?" After years of asking that question, the answer is "there will never be enough." The Left will have to commit suicide through cultural erasure and death, and even then, these people will not have met the requirements necessary to be able to stop kneeling before the altar. They would see their home, their people, and their values, and even their own professed "virtues" be consumed and destroyed than admit that what they're doing is supporting and fomenting evil.
And this is why I hate virtue signaling. It's evil at its core. It's self-aggrandizement floating atop the pain, suffering, and death of others. It's one of the most disgusting things the Democrats or the Western Left do, and they do it to such a degree that it actually endangers everyone around them. They do it to the sound of other leftists applauding each other as loudly as possible to drown out the sounds of screaming happening just down the street, where their "virtue" is in action.
Ultimately, the fire left to burn everything will also consume those who say the fire is a good thing, but even then, they wouldn't dare complain about the smoke inhalation and crispy skin.
Virtue signaling is, bottom line, suicide. Not just cultural suicide. Actual suicide, because real people end up dying.
