...a blog post entitled "We Need More Tory Bishops". Oh we do, do we? Apparently, the writer is also "is firmly persuaded that the Lord wants Ed Miliband to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom about as much as He wants Johann Hari to write the Third Testament". Apparently all Bishops in the Church of England "pore over The Guardian every morning with their mint tea and muesli and intercede fervently for the amelioration of the fortunes of Ed Miliband".
Apparently though, this kind of thing is all humour, because right wingers have a better sense of humour than left wingers (to quote Michael Ehioze-Ediae).
The post, as us usual from this really rather abhorrent imposter of a probably caring, compassionate and non-judging historical member of God's church, descends into a prejudiced and deliberately misleading rant, as perhaps best exemplified by this: "How in the name of St Gemma could an income of £2000 a month be considered poverty?".
Has "His Grace", as this blogger pompously calls himself, considered who might actually get the full amount of benefits?
Has "His Grace" thought about the determinants of this? I guess he probably figures we should shut up such people as his lovely (and totally non-judgementally named) St Gemma in some ghetto areas of town, the slums, rather than have the possibility, shock horror, that they might actually live somewhere near decent, sophisticated people.
Sophisticated people that read the Telegraph and studied A-level economics and thus think they are entitled to judge on exactly how the economy should work, and what governments should and shouldn't do. But, of course, in writing that, I slip right into the category of "His Grace" in making judgements about people.
The bottom line is this: I'm yet to find a right winger, particularly one who is a Christian, talk about benefits and the poorer in society, without resorting to such vague generalisations about the "kinds of people" who claim benefits - based on no more evidence than what they read in the Daily Mail. The idea that the "kinds of people" that are on benefits are our neighbours, and thus we should love them, as Jesus exhorted, seems very lost on these people.
Go on someone, surprise me.
Ok, regardless of who they are - whether they are the type that refuse to work, or the type that no longer have work, or the type seeking work - they do not deserve more money not working than I do working.
ReplyDeleteTo force the working class (that is everyone who works) to pay people to not work is a form of slavery. I am quite happy to help out here and there of course, but if you asked me to give some of my hard-earned money to my neighbour who happens to have more than me (and doesn't earn it), is likely to get a resounding no. (Unless they have a very good reason for it, but in most likelihood, it will still be a no)
The main problem though is that you'll never be able to create a benefits system that works for the majority without there being a minority that exploit it. The question is then whether you abandon the whole thing or not. Because if you gradually tighten and tighten it and reduce it, it becomes (a) much more costly than it ought to be and (b) won't cover those it was originally intended to cover.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it may be that those that seek to limit it are aiming to achieve this - a starve the beast strategy...