Friday 12 April 2013

They limp among us.


Apparently, I am a hateful man. A vicious, evil, nasty product of an unfeeling, uncaring political ideology. That’s right. The Labour Party made me what I am. I grew up watching them do their craven best to accede to the demands of their greedy, self-serving Union paymasters and I would have watched a lot more of it had the power not been cut, night after night. From a naturally Labour voting family my first ever vote went blue for the simple reason that I had obstinately refused the tribal imperative and instead opted for making up my own mind.

I’ve done it ever since. Not that I can’t be swayed by argument and far from being actually (as opposed to ideologically) selfish, those who know me know I generally put my own needs second to doing a good job or helping those in need of what limited talents I may possess. I’ve always worked longer hours than I’ve been paid for and I frequently give up my supposedly free time to do things from which I don’t personally gain. Or, as I like to sum it up, I’m a bit of a mug, really

Whatever it makes me I’d rather thrive in a successful country than vote for a policy which might merely line my personal pocket. Mind you, that’s partly because I don’t pretend to have insider knowledge or sooth-saying powers, so I have no idea what is around the next corner. Accepting a narrow argument or voting on a single principle seems to me to be doomed to failure, or at the very least, ridicule. I think that’s reasonable.

Which is why I’m a tad miffed that I was harangued a bit last week for refusing to accept that, apparently, one fifths of the British population is disabled. The conversation – on Twitter, naturally (I have no friends in real life) – went something like this.

@Them 1 in six people in Britain are disabled, although only 17% were born with their disability.

@Me Bollocks. And by the way 17% IS 1 in six.

@Them You uncaring bastard. Here’s a link to a charity website which PROVES it www. blahblahblah.co.uk

The site actually states the 17% born disabled figure but also claims that almost one in five people are disabled. When I dispute this I get a mild toothless gumming for being a heartless bastard and then we just drift apart; Twitter is like that. But it reaffirms my belief in humanity; that humans are pretty gullible and believe any old guff, particularly if it casts them in a good light. In this case a caring, nurturing, we-must-never-cut-benefits light.

But stop and think about it for a moment. Really? One in five? Is it genuinely just me or would there have to be entire cities fully populated only by the disabled for that to be true? One in five? I live in a pretty downtrodden area and I’d say the true figure is probably more like one in a hundred. And that’s only if you count many of the aches and pains of old age. So what in the world of what-can-I-claim is going on?

Where does ‘not as able as some others’ become actually disabled? Is being a bit deaf a disability, or is it really a condition to be got on with and overcome? If you get fitted with a hearing aid that restores your hearing are you still disabled, or are you cured? If a prosthetic allows you to live a normal life and hold down a job are you still disabled? My father is nearly blind; he’s also nearly eighty. He wouldn’t take kindly to being called disabled, although he is well pissed off about it.

 Then what about encumbrances of our own making? Obesity, alcohol and drug dependence and all the new behavioural diagnoses to excuse lack of effort and discipline in families whose very existence is nothing but a drain on our resources? Calling any of these things ‘disabled’ is an insult to the genuinely needy and it inflates our invalidity rate (and I use the word invalid in both its senses) to percentages so utterly implausible that the thick end of the electorate swallow it whole.

Whatever those who desperately need the figures to show heart-wrenching levels of misery believe, the fact that many hundreds of thousands of disability benefit claimants simply opted not to be reassessed is telling indeed. Wouldn’t we do far better by our citizens if we started telling the truth? Yes, Mr Normal, you are a fat bastard. I prescribe, “Get the fuck out of my surgery now!”

No, you're alright... I've got this.

Once we were called ‘The Sick Man of Europe’. They thought it was all over. Well, according to these inflated statistics, it is now. 

8 comments:

  1. The only true disabillity is a bad attitude and these lazy, dumb as fuck, indolent leftards are riddled with it.

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    1. I once used to converse with a wannabe writer in a wheelchair. He was trying to get a show commissioned called "Crippled with laughter". His stated aim was to show everybody that the disability came second to the person. The trouble was, every time he wrote ANYTHING it featured the disability as the most important thing, yet he couldn't see it.

      We fell out when I suggested that if he wanted people to not see the wheelchair he might want to stop pointing at it all the time.

      HE was genuinely disabled and unsurprisingly a little embittered by it. But at least he was a fighter. What an insult then to grant a lard-arse the same label?

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  2. I actually agree with all this! I know you think me stupid, half the time; but you'd be wrong. Yes, I feel sorry for folk. Can't help it. But never think I don't see the situation for what it is ..

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    1. But who are you, YAB? I only think people stupid who don't think for themselves. Nobody owes anybody anything in life and it's only down to human compassion that help is given to those who need it at all.

      When you confuse socialist ideology for compassion, however, you end up where we are now - almost not allowed to offer up a note of dissent. The NHS is untouchable, people DESERVE to be able to live on benefits and everything is somebody else's fault.

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  3. 800,000+ choosing to come off benefit rather than be assessed said it all for me. I am thinking icebergs don't they say 90% is below the waterline? does that mean another 7,000,000 not fessed up yet? Hey that's getting close to 17/20% of the population maybe @them are on to something:)

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  4. I know who the one in five are .in a few years time One in three ... They are at my place of daily toil - a whole alphabet of 'disorders' given to them by their Jeremy Kyle Fodder parents.

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  5. Ps I'd like to declare that the author of this blog is NOT a hateful man. He is a sweetheart! A veritable cherub. That is all.

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    1. Although, tobe fair, I DO favour a form of pre-emptive eugenics! :o)

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