OPINION:
MyPillow, the company of crack-addict-turned-Christian Mike Lindell, has taken a new production direction and announced the manufacture of face masks for hospitals — the latest corporate body to take on the coronavirus fight from a private market perspective.
And these are the types of businesses that America’s growing socialist groupies would like to tax ’til it hurts.
In times of national emergency, it’s the private sector that frequently saves, more so — faster than — the government.
In a tweet, MyPillow wrote: “MyPillow is excited to announce that we are now manufacturing face masks for hospitals across the country!”
Lindell, the company’s founder, is a self-made millionaire who once struggled with drug addiction — at the same time he was building up his business, no less.
“People say all the time that’s one of the biggest miracles ever,” he said, of his simultaneous cocaine addiction and MyPillow business venture, CNBC reported.
“And then I got into crack,” he said.
And the struggle got real — so real, that even his dealer refused to sell to him, Lindell said.
The rock bottom came months later, along with the prayer — “God,” Lindell said he prayed, on Jan. 16, 2009, “I want to wake up in the morning and never have the desire [for drugs] again.” God honored the request. Lindell began to sell his MyPillow product in earnest, turning to infomercials and other forms of advertisings, and it wasn’t long before his five-employee business grew to the point he needed 500 staffers to fill all the orders.
He’s faced some legal issues in recent times — part of which he believes is due to his steadfast support of President Donald Trump and the politics of revenge from leftist forces.
But his company is now taking a front and center seat at the coronavirus fight.
Health care professionals have been challenged to find the necessary supplies to protect their own selves while treating coronavirus patients.
MyPillow joins Honeywell, Apple, Flexport, Facebook and other private companies stepping in and announcing donations of face masks and other protective gear to hospitals around the country.
“Our teams at Apple have been working to help source supplies for healthcare providers fighting COVID-19,” Apple CEO Time Cook wrote on Twitter. “We’re donating millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe.”
Vice President Mike Pence, in remarks from the White House, thanked Apple for the “level of generosity” of the donations.
AstraZeneca, meanwhile, announced donations of nine million face masks for healthcare professionals; Intel is donating a million.
Against that backdrop, consider this — a headline from NBC’s “Think” site from January: “Millennials support socialism because they want to make America great — but for everyone.”
The essay went on to state, “What socialists have dislikes is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a small number of people. What they have demanded is that ordinary working people get their fair share of the wealth. … Socialists think in terms of universals: we think everyone deserves healthcare and housing, not just the people who prove themselves morally worthy.”
Well guess what: Capitalists think that, too.
Free market businessmen and businesswomen think that, as well.
The difference is that private venture people, unlike socialists, who quite willingly rob Peter to pay Paul, just know how to pay for it themselves.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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