Thought for today:
"Society is full of free loaders; many more it seems now than ever before. I think in some ways it's to do with people having grown more accustomed to instant gratification. Many people have grown up possessing a belief of their natural entitlement to automatically have this or that without any attaching responsibility. Some people are not concerned in the slightest as to the consequences they produce for others by their irresponsible behaviou, so long as other taxpayers pick up the tab.
I was watching a programme on television recently about a married couple who had parented ten children. One parent was blind and had additional needs and her husband acted as her carer. They lived in a four bedroomed house which was overcrowded and was seeking a six-bedroomed house from the council, which naturally would be paid from their housing benefits. They had their needs assessed, were granted one and appeared genuinely grateful.
So far so good you might be forgiven for thinking, despite probably holding a few reservations. The thing I found unacceptable though was while it was mentioned that the family also housed five dogs and eight cats inside their council house, only once was this mentioned at the beginning of the programme and never again referred to.
Allow me to be perfectly clear. I love children and all animals and as the eldest child of seven I know the benefits of being brought up in a large family. I am registered disabled and have been so for many years. I have always subscribed to the view that with opportunity and choice comes a responsibility to exercise our choices fairly.
I do not believe that even disabled people have entitlement to be freeloaders under any circumstances or to make choices that gravely impinge upon the lives and welfare of other disabled people and able-bodied citizens. While I believe in the right to parent as many children as one wishes or own as many animals as one wants, I do not believe such to be an entitlement by anyone to be funded by the taxpayer; especially when austerity across the country adversely affects the lives of all.
There is only one pot of money to draw from whatever the country's needs are. Necessary drugs for dying people cannot any longer be funded without rationing. Over twenty cancer drugs which are known to save lives have recently been withdrawn on account of cost. Old people who live alone and saved all of their lives, never claiming a penny from the State, can no longer receive more than 20 minutes Home Help daily. Our hospitals are greatly understaffed. Millions of people who want jobs cannot get work. Millions who want to own their own home never will, while many more live in exceptionally overcrowded and delapidated rented properties of exhorbitant rent. Countless homeless people live rough nightly, many infants die because insufficient research has been funded to find possible cures and the suicide rate of people suffering from substance abuse, mental illness and depression increases year upon year.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in our Welfare budget that grows exponentially, however well the country fares. David Cameron said that we are all in this together. All? I think not!" William Forde: August 10th, 2015.
"Society is full of free loaders; many more it seems now than ever before. I think in some ways it's to do with people having grown more accustomed to instant gratification. Many people have grown up possessing a belief of their natural entitlement to automatically have this or that without any attaching responsibility. Some people are not concerned in the slightest as to the consequences they produce for others by their irresponsible behaviou, so long as other taxpayers pick up the tab.
I was watching a programme on television recently about a married couple who had parented ten children. One parent was blind and had additional needs and her husband acted as her carer. They lived in a four bedroomed house which was overcrowded and was seeking a six-bedroomed house from the council, which naturally would be paid from their housing benefits. They had their needs assessed, were granted one and appeared genuinely grateful.
So far so good you might be forgiven for thinking, despite probably holding a few reservations. The thing I found unacceptable though was while it was mentioned that the family also housed five dogs and eight cats inside their council house, only once was this mentioned at the beginning of the programme and never again referred to.
Allow me to be perfectly clear. I love children and all animals and as the eldest child of seven I know the benefits of being brought up in a large family. I am registered disabled and have been so for many years. I have always subscribed to the view that with opportunity and choice comes a responsibility to exercise our choices fairly.
I do not believe that even disabled people have entitlement to be freeloaders under any circumstances or to make choices that gravely impinge upon the lives and welfare of other disabled people and able-bodied citizens. While I believe in the right to parent as many children as one wishes or own as many animals as one wants, I do not believe such to be an entitlement by anyone to be funded by the taxpayer; especially when austerity across the country adversely affects the lives of all.
There is only one pot of money to draw from whatever the country's needs are. Necessary drugs for dying people cannot any longer be funded without rationing. Over twenty cancer drugs which are known to save lives have recently been withdrawn on account of cost. Old people who live alone and saved all of their lives, never claiming a penny from the State, can no longer receive more than 20 minutes Home Help daily. Our hospitals are greatly understaffed. Millions of people who want jobs cannot get work. Millions who want to own their own home never will, while many more live in exceptionally overcrowded and delapidated rented properties of exhorbitant rent. Countless homeless people live rough nightly, many infants die because insufficient research has been funded to find possible cures and the suicide rate of people suffering from substance abuse, mental illness and depression increases year upon year.
This is just the tip of the iceberg in our Welfare budget that grows exponentially, however well the country fares. David Cameron said that we are all in this together. All? I think not!" William Forde: August 10th, 2015.
