I remember when I first heard Charlie Kirk’s statement that the death of children in school shootings was the unfortunate but necessary cost of the second amendment. The thought that occurred to me at the time was that that would make the second amendment the most expensive amendment of them all. I can’t think of any other that we so regularly sacrifice our children to.

Having been shown the one altar, I began to recognize so many, many others. I read about children getting sick unto death, because they weren’t vaccinated against preventable diseases. Politicians, and often even the parents of these children, believe that this is the terrible, but inescapable, cost of keeping the government out of decisions that God gave a child’s parents, and only their parents, the right to make.

Next altar, the Epstein files. Trump reportedly stated that his reluctance to release the files was because “friends of mine will get hurt.” Let’s take him at his word (I know, I know). No one wants their friends to get hurt, and if the cost of protecting your friends is to turn a blind eye to the sexual abuse of minors, what choice do you have?

Then there are the children injured or killed in horrific ways by Israel’s military actions in Gaza—the sad but unavoidable toll of the never-ending war against terrorism.

Then there are the schoolgirls killed by the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran. Undoubtedly, many more children will need to pay up as the war drags on.

Will we ever hear Trump, or Hegseth, or Rubio, or Miller, or anyone in the current administration say about some policy decision, that it’s off the table, because too many children will die?

In fact, is there anything at all that this administration actually values less than the lives of children?