la peste ~ martyrs for the American economy?

Every now and then the strangest things strike me. Hard.

Today it's something straight from the mouth of the Texas Lieutenant Governor. Here's what he said.

 "... “My message: let’s get back to work, let’s get back to living, let’s be smart about it, and those of us who are 70-plus, we’ll take care of ourselves,” Lt Gov Dan Patrick, a 69-year-old Republican, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night.

“Don’t sacrifice the country,” Patrick said. “Don’t do that.”

Patrick said he feared that public health restrictions to prevent coronavirus could end American life as he knows it, and that he is willing to risk death to protect the economy for his grandchildren. “You know... no one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick said. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” 

“That doesn’t make me noble or brave or anything like that,” he added. “I just think there are lots of grandparents out there in this country like me.”..."
(from the Guardian)

Let me see if I have this right.

1) American citizens prime mission is to support the economy.

2) Older people are willing to die to keep the economy afloat.

Do I have that right?  Is that what the Texan is saying?

Cranky Old Man News Flash: There are plenty of things I might be willing to die for, but keeping the "America that all America loves" alive is not one of them.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  OK.  As a foundational idea, I can support that (even though the Texan is clearly not referencing this).

But to sacrifice myself for an idea as vague as "the America that all America loves?"  I think not.

The strange thing that strikes me hard is the narrow-mindedness of certain "public leaders."

I swear, it feels as if they're trying to kill us off.

UPDATE:
This is what I should've written, but fortunately someone else has -

NY Governor Cuomo: “My mother is not expendable. Your mother is not expendable. We will not put a dollar figure on human life. We can have a public health strategy that is consistent with an economic one. No one should be talking about social darwinism for the sake of the stock market.”