Another MP in Internet history fail
Discussion
Rovinghawk said:
Dindoit said:
Selective eugenics via sterilisation is a little bit different to wearing a condom.
Could you please show the bit where anyone has suggested selective eugenics? I had a good look but can't actually see it proposed.Ben Bradley said:
...Sorry but how many children you have is a choice; if you can’t afford them, stop having them! Vasectomies are free...
...the "vasectomies are free" bit? It's just an observation, not a suggestion. There are many other free methods of contraception. Including, but not limited to abstinence, withdrawal, condoms, oral contraceptive pills, and the IUD (coil).The frothy mouthed morons are responding to this opinion (historic, not current opinion, by the way) on the basis of a single word. It's right there in his statement, with context provided. Yet those hounding him seem unable, or more likely unwilling to accept the context. Again, for clarity? He suggested that people who cannot afford multiple children should not have them. If he'd ditched the next three word sentence, there'd be "nothing to see here".
Before going off on one about "selective eugenics", perhaps you should read some history and educate yourself. The Nazis were proponents of a particularly nasty branch of eugenics. They sought to 'perfect' their national gene pool by positively breeding in desirable (to them) characteristics, and eradicating undesirable ones not just by preventing reproduction in "undesirables", but by eradicating the "undesirables" entirely. The Chinese government, on the other hand, didn't try to over-complicate things with eugenics when they attempted to get control of their population increase - they simply ordered an arbitrary cap on the number of times any family was permitted to produce offspring. One fascist solution, one communist solution. Neither of which is anywhere near what Ben Bradley suggested. All he seems (to me at least) to have said is...
"Look chaps, we can't afford to fund your kids as a lifestyle choice. We've got a lot on our plates already, what with budget deficits, and an increasing bill for the care of our elderly population. So if you'd be so kind as to stop having kids until such time as you can fund their upbringing yourselves, that'd be appreciated. Thanks."
...he's hardly auditioning for a part as Vlad the Impaler, ffs...
Harry Biscuit said:
zygalski said:
Guybrush said:
FN2TypeR said:
zygalski said:
Elderly people who don't have private health care and are living in government subsidized accommodation should be humanely disposed of.
They are an insult to tax payers like myself and should have taken better precautions during their life so they could afford not to sponge off the state. They only have themselves to blame.
Just imagine the budget savings that could be made if anyone over 65 who is not funding their lifestyle privately is euthanised!
I tell you, some of these state pensioners in sheltered accommodation are living pretty lavish lifestyles.
Cripples too, if you can't dance then it should be game over IMOThey are an insult to tax payers like myself and should have taken better precautions during their life so they could afford not to sponge off the state. They only have themselves to blame.
Just imagine the budget savings that could be made if anyone over 65 who is not funding their lifestyle privately is euthanised!
I tell you, some of these state pensioners in sheltered accommodation are living pretty lavish lifestyles.
yellowjack said:
...the "vasectomies are free" bit? It's just an observation, not a suggestion. There are many other free methods of contraception. Including, but not limited to abstinence, withdrawal, condoms, oral contraceptive pills, and the IUD (coil).
The frothy mouthed morons are responding to this opinion (historic, not current opinion, by the way) on the basis of a single word. It's right there in his statement, with context provided. Yet those hounding him seem unable, or more likely unwilling to accept the context. Again, for clarity? He suggested that people who cannot afford multiple children should not have them. If he'd ditched the next three word sentence, there'd be "nothing to see here".
Before going off on one about "selective eugenics", perhaps you should read some history and educate yourself. The Nazis were proponents of a particularly nasty branch of eugenics. They sought to 'perfect' their national gene pool by positively breeding in desirable (to them) characteristics, and eradicating undesirable ones not just by preventing reproduction in "undesirables", but by eradicating the "undesirables" entirely. The Chinese government, on the other hand, didn't try to over-complicate things with eugenics when they attempted to get control of their population increase - they simply ordered an arbitrary cap on the number of times any family was permitted to produce offspring. One fascist solution, one communist solution. Neither of which is anywhere near what Ben Bradley suggested. All he seems (to me at least) to have said is...
"Look chaps, we can't afford to fund your kids as a lifestyle choice. We've got a lot on our plates already, what with budget deficits, and an increasing bill for the care of our elderly population. So if you'd be so kind as to stop having kids until such time as you can fund their upbringing yourselves, that'd be appreciated. Thanks."
...he's hardly auditioning for a part as Vlad the Impaler, ffs...
The frothy mouthed morons are responding to this opinion (historic, not current opinion, by the way) on the basis of a single word. It's right there in his statement, with context provided. Yet those hounding him seem unable, or more likely unwilling to accept the context. Again, for clarity? He suggested that people who cannot afford multiple children should not have them. If he'd ditched the next three word sentence, there'd be "nothing to see here".
Before going off on one about "selective eugenics", perhaps you should read some history and educate yourself. The Nazis were proponents of a particularly nasty branch of eugenics. They sought to 'perfect' their national gene pool by positively breeding in desirable (to them) characteristics, and eradicating undesirable ones not just by preventing reproduction in "undesirables", but by eradicating the "undesirables" entirely. The Chinese government, on the other hand, didn't try to over-complicate things with eugenics when they attempted to get control of their population increase - they simply ordered an arbitrary cap on the number of times any family was permitted to produce offspring. One fascist solution, one communist solution. Neither of which is anywhere near what Ben Bradley suggested. All he seems (to me at least) to have said is...
"Look chaps, we can't afford to fund your kids as a lifestyle choice. We've got a lot on our plates already, what with budget deficits, and an increasing bill for the care of our elderly population. So if you'd be so kind as to stop having kids until such time as you can fund their upbringing yourselves, that'd be appreciated. Thanks."
...he's hardly auditioning for a part as Vlad the Impaler, ffs...
Dindoit said:
Selective eugenics via sterilisation is a little bit different to wearing a condom.
Eugenics is concerned with selective breeding to promote (or supress) certain genetic traits.
As far as i’m aware, wealth is not a genetic trait.
Voluntary vasectomy is a perfectly valid suggestion for somebody who lacks the self control to use other contraceptive measures effectively.
oyster said:
Derek Smith said:
oyster said:
He's obviously not particularly numerate.
To spout all the venom for 0.005% of the total welfare budget. Why isn't his focus on the other 99.995%?
Within that 99.995% spend is heating allowances and bus passes for my parents generation. People who have profited from £500,000+ of tax free gains on their home. People who can afford to take 7 or 8 cruises a year. People who were able to retire at the same age as people 40 years ago, even though they will live 10 years longer.
Is that enough for them? Hell no.
How about we promise that their incomes are guaranteed to go up by inflation?
Not enough.... what if wage growth is higher than inflation?
Oh you can have that too.
And what if wage growth and inflation are very low?
OK, here's 2.5% increase then.
But what about those low interest rates? Please can we have some more......
OK, well since you don't get much for free already - here's some pensioner bonds.
So how much do bus passes - or to put it another way, subsidies for public transport - cost the government?To spout all the venom for 0.005% of the total welfare budget. Why isn't his focus on the other 99.995%?
Within that 99.995% spend is heating allowances and bus passes for my parents generation. People who have profited from £500,000+ of tax free gains on their home. People who can afford to take 7 or 8 cruises a year. People who were able to retire at the same age as people 40 years ago, even though they will live 10 years longer.
Is that enough for them? Hell no.
How about we promise that their incomes are guaranteed to go up by inflation?
Not enough.... what if wage growth is higher than inflation?
Oh you can have that too.
And what if wage growth and inflation are very low?
OK, here's 2.5% increase then.
But what about those low interest rates? Please can we have some more......
OK, well since you don't get much for free already - here's some pensioner bonds.
You seem to suggest that income from homes should be taxed, yet suggest that death duties are a good thing brings your generation out in hives (see fairly recent thread on the subject). How about those who bought shares? Or, perhaps, classic cars? Should their good sense be taxed?
Taking holidays, now there's a massive crime just waiting to be punished. I might well be of the same generation as your parents. If so then they, like me, might have had to forgo holidays, other than camping in the UK, for years. They, like me, might have had their first foreign holiday when in their 30s. When did you take your first?
Did they save up for the deposit on their house, like I did? Spending two years not spending my fiance's income? Cutting back on socialising that didn't including going around to someone's house?
There's lots of other whatabouts one could quote. I don't begrudge my kids' holidays in foreign climes I've only read about, their iPhones, iPads, games consoles, nights out and such. Perhaps I'm just not the jealous type.
Retiring at the same age as 40 years ago, eh? Neither of my grandfathers reached retirement age. My father died at 64, looking forward to spending time with his grandchildren, something denied him by the hours he had to work. I'm grateful to him and only wish that he had a few more years left when he could, perhaps, indulge in cruises, spending my inheritance.
If one should suggest that kids today should do what I did when I wanted to buy a house: spend nothing, go nowhere, walk to work, walking through a local park as an afternoon out with my fiance, for two years and it is suggested, with some justification, that it should be better for them than it was for me.
I was employed all but two weeks from the age of 16. I've paid taxes and without complaint. I knew they were there to support my parents' generation. I only wish my father could have gone on cruises after working from the age of 14, for fighting in a war for six years, for enduring booms and busts.
Try not being quite so jealous. If you want to improve your lot, then do so. Don't moan that you want to lower other people's.
The government spends an extraordinary amount of money on older people. They have to because old people vote in droves.
The proportion I'm talking about is why so much fuss is made of a few thousand edge cases for benefits, when there are millions of mainstream pensioners costing a hundred, perhaps a thousand times the amount.
Much, much luckier than those before them.
A good bit luckier than those behind them.
Why we keep dishing out benefits, discounts, free stuff and literal cash to people who emphatically don't need it is a mystery.
We're supposed to be in straitened times, but we tax the stretched working to pay private companies to serve free travel to the richest people in our society.
Benefits are mainly means-tested, unless you're old. Then you just get the lot "because you paid in." (and because you vote)
I'm sure I read that for the first time, the average pensioner now has a higher income than the average person with a full-time job. I'd stand corrected if that was just a malarial dream, but if not, clearly the world has gone totally bonkers.
SpeckledJim said:
Quite. Derek's generation are the luckiest in history. Property. Pensions. Prosperity. Peace.
Much, much luckier than those before them.
A good bit luckier than those behind them.
Why we keep dishing out benefits, discounts, free stuff and literal cash to people who emphatically don't need it is a mystery.
We're supposed to be in straitened times, but we tax the stretched working to pay private companies to serve free travel to the richest people in our society.
Benefits are mainly means-tested, unless you're old. Then you just get the lot "because you paid in." (and because you vote)
I'm sure I read that for the first time, the average pensioner now has a higher income than the average person with a full-time job. I'd stand corrected if that was just a malarial dream, but if not, clearly the world has gone totally bonkers.
What does the "average person with a full time job" earn and what is Much, much luckier than those before them.
A good bit luckier than those behind them.
Why we keep dishing out benefits, discounts, free stuff and literal cash to people who emphatically don't need it is a mystery.
We're supposed to be in straitened times, but we tax the stretched working to pay private companies to serve free travel to the richest people in our society.
Benefits are mainly means-tested, unless you're old. Then you just get the lot "because you paid in." (and because you vote)
I'm sure I read that for the first time, the average pensioner now has a higher income than the average person with a full-time job. I'd stand corrected if that was just a malarial dream, but if not, clearly the world has gone totally bonkers.
" the average pensioners " income?
SpeckledJim said:
Quite. Derek's generation are the luckiest in history. Property. Pensions. Prosperity. Peace.
Much, much luckier than those before them.
A good bit luckier than those behind them.
Why we keep dishing out benefits, discounts, free stuff and literal cash to people who emphatically don't need it is a mystery.
We're supposed to be in straitened times, but we tax the stretched working to pay private companies to serve free travel to the richest people in our society.
Benefits are mainly means-tested, unless you're old. Then you just get the lot "because you paid in." (and because you vote)
I'm sure I read that for the first time, the average pensioner now has a higher income than the average person with a full-time job. I'd stand corrected if that was just a malarial dream, but if not, clearly the world has gone totally bonkers.
Lucky, eh?Much, much luckier than those before them.
A good bit luckier than those behind them.
Why we keep dishing out benefits, discounts, free stuff and literal cash to people who emphatically don't need it is a mystery.
We're supposed to be in straitened times, but we tax the stretched working to pay private companies to serve free travel to the richest people in our society.
Benefits are mainly means-tested, unless you're old. Then you just get the lot "because you paid in." (and because you vote)
I'm sure I read that for the first time, the average pensioner now has a higher income than the average person with a full-time job. I'd stand corrected if that was just a malarial dream, but if not, clearly the world has gone totally bonkers.
You’ve got a mobile phone, multi-channel TV, iPads, holidays away and, no doubt abroad, and all sorts of other advantages that were denied me that would take too long to list, although I will put in a note about central heating only coming on for a couple of hours a day, and not in the morning of a working day.
Oh, and rationing. Let’s not forget that.
If you, like me, put all your partner’s income away for two years (a bit longer in our case) and some on your own, would you be able to afford to put the deposit down on a starter home? ‘Cause that’s what someone of my age had to do. But, of course, that would mean you not living together for that period.
Have you got a nice car? When I got married I had a car that cost me a week’s take home pay. I had to get rid of it when I started to pay back the mortgage. I used to service it myself, with the help/advice from my father. In my day you either did it yourself or you went by bus.
I did not go away on holiday for five years after I got married and started to buy a house, honeymoon in East Anglia excluded. My parents used to give us food parcels. I walked the 2 miles from my house to the railway station five days a week, sometimes six.
How many of your shoes have been repaired? I did it myself, got quite skilled.
When I was 28 my parents used to take us out for a meal in a country pub once a month.
I worked in conditions that were a risk to health. I suffer from vitamin B12 deficiency which is partially genetic but it would have been latent had I not worked in an atmosphere rich in lead dust. A chap in the foundry died of lead poisoning. I have a brother who has to have injections once a month.
For a long time my average time off a month was just three days. Yet still, if I’d had another child, I could have claimed supplementary benefit.
I could go on. But I’ve done enough to show that the comparison between the generations is not as it is pasted by those who moan about their lot. Would I swop my time for the time my kids have? Not half.
Two of my kids have bought their own houses. They used an old fashioned little trick: they saved up.
There are negatives to nowadays; for instance, longer hours in the main, although I worked longer hours than most in my time. Education is no longer free, meaning that anyone with any sense would think twice about taking on a massive debt at the start of their lives.
Further, the reduction in the power of unions means that pay has gone down for the poorest.
When our first child was due my wife and I decided that she should stay at home to look after him, and the next, until they started school. I’m sorry that that option is no longer available. Also there’s the threat to security if one of a couple loses their job.
Overall, though, if you think my generation had it easy, then you lot don’t know you are living.
As for pensioners having a higher income, I think you are confusing it with disposable income. I’m financially secure, having paid off my mortgage. I still work although no more than 20 hours a week and an average of around 12. I normally have a holiday abroad each year but for various reasons did not in 2017.
Means testing bus passes? It’s an idea but it would save little money overall as it is a form of subsidy, like the railways benefit from. It also helps keep town centres open. Shop keepers are all for bus passes.
Heating allowances? I’d be happy with those being means tested. I’d be happier with costs being lower for everyone but there you go.
I belong to a rugby club. The players, all under 32, turn up in cars much newer than my 2006 Ford Escort. I, however, don’t begrudge them their choices. But choice it is. If you want to buy a house, then save. It is within the reach of couples just the same as it was in my day.
I didn’t borrow money. If there was something we needed, we saved up or bought second hand. How much in your house is s/h?
So have a think, ask around, and see just how easy my generation had it for years. Did I mention rationing? Did I mention coal fires? How about being brutalised at school? I still have aggro from an injury I suffered at the hands of the music teacher for having perfect pitch.
It's not all about buying houses. Your generation is more prosperous than mine at your age. We are as peaceful now as when I was a kid. Property is within the reach of any couple with full time jobs and a willingness to sacrifice. As for pensions, my kids are putting money away on a monthly basis. They expect to retire before state pensionable age.
You want it? You work for it like my generation had to.
havoc said:
Thanks. I wonder how many pensioners actually have private pensions.
BOR said:
Cupramax said:
BOR said:
I disagree with the bits where his solution is that people on low-incomes should have vasectomies (presumably sterilisation for the women is also on the cards).
What do you suggest to stop those who don't have any money to fund their shagging habit?A cap is perfectly acceptable. If you remove the human element it's like someone buying multiple cars they can't afford. The difference is the human element as a society we spot that we shouldn't penalise a child for their parents mistake and that every child should be cared and provided for to a minimum standard. As a society we've made that decision that we don't want a child's life to be determined by their parents mistakes. If it was a car society wouldn't put it's hand in it's pockets to pay for 10 cars someone can't afford. As we clearly wouldn't allow a child to die for this reason we either say "we'll pay for each and every child that happens to pop along" or we look at ways to reduce children born into these situations so that we as a society can achieve those basic standards for all.
If instead of vasectomies he'd suggested the generic word contraception then nobody would care. It's a pointless argument there is nothing wrong with a society looking to ensure a basic level of care for those inside it and that's all that's been suggested not aborting babies from particular backgrounds but applying the same level of thought that most people give it. Very few average or above families have the same number of children as the less well off ones, attempting to educate these people isn't some genetic crusade.
If instead of vasectomies he'd suggested the generic word contraception then nobody would care. It's a pointless argument there is nothing wrong with a society looking to ensure a basic level of care for those inside it and that's all that's been suggested not aborting babies from particular backgrounds but applying the same level of thought that most people give it. Very few average or above families have the same number of children as the less well off ones, attempting to educate these people isn't some genetic crusade.
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