Monday, May 04, 2009

Relishing our dependence

According to the Minister of Social Development,

"One in five New Zealanders has some form of disability, and that number is expected to grow by 60 per cent over the next 40 years."

That means one in five is going to become one in three.

Apart from the ageing population, why? What the hell is going on here?

Why does government talk up disability? It seems almost to relish the prospect of growing dependence. I blame the infiltration of mothers (or potential mothers) into wider society, especially via the public service. It is one thing to mollycoddle one's own. To some extent that is the very essence of a mother. I do it with my own kids but that's where it ends.

I really can't stand this disability-isation of people. So many invisible and invented maladies are now 'disabilities'. That means more funding, more planning, more nappy-changing. And it does a disservice to those with genuine and debilitating conditions. Proud people who struggle to maintain as much independence and self-reliance as they can.

They are demeaned by all the me-tooers; the snouters wearing their newly described 'disabilities' like badges of honour demanding that government fawn all over them. People fighting to be more disabled than the next. And those that would indulge them.

One in three people will have some form of disability? What a pathetic prediction and pathetic acquiescence.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never cease to be amazed by the large number of seemingly able bodied people brazenly displaying their orange mobility cards which allow them to park in those hallowed spaces. At the same time as I observe these cretins taking up the parking spaces as the stroll the local malls trying to fill in their boring little lives, the guy with the wheelchair on top of his car continues to cruise the block waitng for a chance to park.

Dirk

Anonymous said...

The easiest way to get a benefit, get yourself a nice little substance abuse problem. No questions asked, cradle to grave welfare.

Oswald Bastable said...

A sense of entitlement to other peoples money is a disability.

Unlike physical or other mental disabilities- this IS one to be ashamed of having!

Anonymous said...

lets notforget, the very people who stand in judgement and decide who gets a benefit or not, are the very people who need those on benefits so they can justify their jobs in the benefit industry. Is this catch 22?

Dirk

Sally said...

Great opinion piece of David Cowen http://www.nbr.co.nz/opinion/david-cohen/the-end-siege

"One guy with a gun, unemployed for the past 20 years and a known dope fiend,..."


I tried to post the following comment but the nbr spam filter blocked it.

So many lessons to be learnt by our officials, editors etc.

Interesting programme on TV last night - about a bank that is lending money to Kenyans living on a few dollars a day or less — people long considered too risky and too poor for banks to consider — a bank called Equity Bank has managed to build itself into the third biggest bank in the country, with 3 million customers.

Savings accounts are free and loans for less than $10 are available at relatively low interest rates.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/kenya/090114/kenya-banks-farmers

A lesson here for our cradle to the grave welfare society about self-reliance.