Opinion: Powell’s Death Puts Leftist Opportunism on Display

On Tuesday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell died at the age of 84.

In addition to the accomplished statesmanship that comprised his later life, Powell was a four-star general whose remarkable career in the United States military spanned three decades. In that time, he was awarded a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, served as Deputy National Security Advisor and later National Security Advisor during the Reagan administration, and served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.

After his appointment by former President George W. Bush, Powell was sworn in as Secretary of State in 2001, he became the first Black man to hold the position.

Powell’s legacy was defined by his trailblazing career, and that is what we should be talking about. Unfortunately, what we have found ourselves talking about is the farthest possible thing from Powell’s legacy.

After a statement from Powell’s family revealed that he had died of complications from COVID-19 after having been fully vaccinated, any air of mourning that there may have been quickly dissipated. Like clockwork, leftists began using Powell’s death to promulgate the brazen lie pushed forth by the Biden administration that people who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID pose an existential threat to those who have.

The fall of a contemporary titan is something that should inherently transcend the realm of the political.

Powell was a great man, and in reflecting on his character, the question of whether or not you or I agreed with him on public policy is irrelevant. Using the news of his death as a soapbox to push COVID policy is morally reprehensible.

But for the media talking heads and Twitter bluechecks using Powell as a political prop and suggesting that he died because of the selfish, conspiratorial rubes opposing vaccine mandates, Powell was less of a man than he is a pawn; an ace up the sleeve of the intellectual barbarian.

In short: Powell died, and they saw it as a means to push an agenda.

There used to be a line defined by a commonly understood sense of not only decency, but humanity, that both sides would largely agree not to cross — and death stood on the other side of that line. However, that is now a relic of an era that has long since gone by, as the left have since embraced a philosophy of subjective morality.

The problem with that moral relativist school of thought is that when there exists no objective moral standard to which something can be held, its value becomes meaningless and everything is expendable. Instead, the left have defined their political convictions as so integral to human existence that their intellectual thuggery is not only justified, but righteous. Civility, decency, morality, and a basic understanding of our shared humanity, meanwhile, are simply roadblocks placed in the way of utopia.

As such, the sanctity of life is now only relevant in our discourse when it can be ghoulishly used to make cheap political points.