Petition o' the day at No. 10...
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Anyone with assets over £500,000 should be made to do community service". Source.
And the rationale?
"People with assets over £500,000 often have not EARNED that money. It has come to them in an inheritance, or by luck, or possibly illegally. Whichever it is they have almost certainly not earned their assets. So as the country has been so good to them why should they not give something back to it. They could be given an advisor who would assess how much work they were actually doing - and the amount of community service varied - between 1 week for those employed full time - to longer periods for the completely idle rich. Pensioners obviously excluded".
Don't you just love the Great British public?
And the rationale?
"People with assets over £500,000 often have not EARNED that money. It has come to them in an inheritance, or by luck, or possibly illegally. Whichever it is they have almost certainly not earned their assets. So as the country has been so good to them why should they not give something back to it. They could be given an advisor who would assess how much work they were actually doing - and the amount of community service varied - between 1 week for those employed full time - to longer periods for the completely idle rich. Pensioners obviously excluded".
Don't you just love the Great British public?
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This is why the Great British Public takes so passively to the nanny state - any single aspect of which would have the Americans or the Aussies out on the streets in armed rebellion. They themselves are just itching for a turn at being nanny and imposing their own will on their fellow citizens.
I think it's a sickness. A definable psychological condition.
class/financial envy is robust and growing indeed.
the Tories really need to start explaining how the real world works. However, I fear that whilst we are Alice in the 'Wonderland' of the EU, people will be removed further from the tenuous grasp of the economic reality of the world in which we live
I suppose given that envy has been soft-soaped into a virtue as 'social justice', it is hardly surprising.
I think (hope) that may be a joke
It is a tempting idea though . I sometimes think we are to reticent and simply severing the Gordian of social justice would be a better appraoch.
In this spirit of radical social engineering I propose a nasty person tax and a new nice preson dividend. It is generally pretty clear who is nasty and people like me (nice) are easy to spot as well.
Immense moral good would flow from such a measure and the disincentive to nastiness would slowly cause the states role to dindle into a minor adjustment between finely nuanced shades of niceish and , "not quite out of the top drawer".
There may be some minor problems in the administration of the scheme but lets not be scared off by the details .
Should I start a petition ?
"He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
New-man-i-a is coming to town...."
I'm with Hitch on this one. Has to be a joke.
Hitch, Swift - I wish I had your faith in humanity.
Why are these nut jobs going to "obviously" exclude pensioners who have in excess of £500,000?
I'd believe it! How depressing that, inside the breast of so many Englishmen there lurks a fascist soul.
And thanks, C for that great line: now, whenever I hear someone use the phrase 'Social Justice', I shall ask "Isn't that what they used to call 'Envy'!"
The great Peter Lewis of Cornerstone Evangelical Church in Nottingham is fond of saying that the 'new morality' is simply the old immorality...
...the nanny state - any single aspect of which would have the Americans...on the streets in armed rebellion.
Too bloody right, woman. Now, how do we inoculate some of this attitude into our fellow Britons?
The Aussies, Verity? They put up with anything, for heaven's sake, as long as it doesn't obstruct their watching sport. The have compulsory voting, even.
Dr Syn - I don't think it can be done. Because each greedy little ego is awaiting its turn to impose its own rules on fellow citizens.
I mentioned this before on another site, but when I was living in my medieval village in France, I once witnessed this in living colour. The street were very narrow and medieval and the houses tall and thin. I happened to be looking out of my window on the first floor, down into the narrow - as in, around 8' wide - street below, which was, obviously, one-way where an English couple who had got out of their car and were having a discussion.
Despite its one-way status my next door neighbour sometimes used to drive up it anyway and unload his groceries or whatever. But this couple had intended to drive down it THE RIGHT WAY. Just like a movie, a handy Gendarme had driven by, on his midday check of the village. They hailed him and he got out and came over.
They indicated my neighbour's car,pointing in the wrong direction, blocking the street.
To their horror, the Gendarme didn't seem to register the enormity of the offence. He simply pointed out helpfully, that the next tiny rue over (all of three car lengths away) also went down the hill to the same spot.
Well! This was not good enough for our English couple. "I mean, it does seem rather inconsiderate," the lady pointed out, "to drive up the street the wrong way and then abandon the car." The Gendarme shrugged and gestured at the next street. "I mean, it does inconvenience other people, and there is a sign on the street that indicates 'one way'.
The Gendarme suggested they just back up for around six feet, and drive down the next street. But this wouldn't do. The English couple wanted someone to swing for this. "I mean, does the car belong to someone around here? I mean, they've just parked it and gone." The Gendarme was looking more and more perplexed. He'd shown them where the next street was. All they had to do was back-up and go.
Eventually, perhaps having encountered the type before, he gave them a dismissive nod, got back in his car and drove off. Well, I never! Did you see that? He just drove away!
They backed out of the street white with indignation.
Verity -
Two points:
1) When I said "inoculate" I meant, of course, "inculcate", though "inoculate", despite the misspelling, has its charms;
2) Whe you say, "...each greedy little ego is awaiting its turn to impose its own rules on fellow citizens" you have hit upon the true nature of the Briton.
I posted something about this on my blog back when it was announced that the first super-casino was to go to Manchester, but for those who didn't see it (which is, oh, about all sixty million of you lot), the two great driving forces in British life are puritanism and contempt. Together these two give rise to a third phenomenon*: wowserism. What both Mr. The C's original post and your anecdote are about is, I think, contempt.
* Can anyone, hand on heart, say he can read that word and not start singing, quietly and to himself, "Menah-menah"?
do doo bedodo
Phenomenom
dododo do
Phenomenom
dodoo be dodo
No idea what you are on about actually sin. I thought to two great drving forces were sex and and more sex
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