avevale_intelligencer: (Default)
avevale_intelligencer ([personal profile] avevale_intelligencer) wrote2011-06-17 11:05 pm

I do not understand

Somebody voted.

Somebody voted for a party which believes there should be no limit to how little an employer can pay its hirelings, especially if they are sick and have special needs; that people who are sick and have special needs should be left to fend for themselves with no benefits and on a wage on which, by definition, nobody can afford to live.

Somebody voted for a party which maintains simultaneously that a job is the only measure of human worth and that a job is a favour generously bestowed upon the lower orders by the upper classes, and which enforces those definitions on all of us and always has.

Somebody voted for a party whose members want to keep all the money and all the power in the hands of the top fraction of one per cent of the population, and do not give a damn what happens to the rest.

I do not understand how anyone can vote for such a party. I do not understand how there can be one ordinary person walking on this earth who would ever vote for such a party. Even when the only alternative is an alternative in name only, as now, to vote for that alternative should be a point of pride and honour for any person living who is not already part of the ruling élite.

There is no way that the true nature of this party can not be apparent to anyone who pays even the marginal degree of attention that I do to current affairs. There is no way that anyone can be unaware of that for which they have chosen to cast their vote.

I do not understand. I don't think I ever will.

It makes it very hard for me to feel human, sometimes. Because whatever kind of reasoning, whatever pattern of thought, allows people to choose to support such a party, I am not clever enough, not strong enough, to reach it.
wolfette: me with camera (Default)

[personal profile] wolfette 2011-06-17 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
I once worked (briefly) with someone who actually held those views. Single mothers were scum who shouldn't be allowed to claim benefits - even if they were divorced single mothers whose partners had deserted them. Unemployed people were scum who just "didn't try hard enough to find a job". Disabled people were scum who should have been put down at birth rather than be a burden on the state.

It felt like karma when her husband walked out on her (for a younger, prettier model) and left her to try to cope with their "quiver full" of children by herself, giving her no child support. Of course the children were all too young for her to work full time without child support - which she couldn't afford to pay for on her salary.

[identity profile] zanda-myrande.livejournal.com 2011-06-17 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Did she hold by her principles and go down proudly?
wolfette: me with camera (Default)

[personal profile] wolfette 2011-06-17 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
nope, because, in her case "it was different".
ext_12246: (logic)

[identity profile] thnidu.livejournal.com 2011-06-18 01:50 am (UTC)(link)
It always is, when it comes to themselves. (Icon not addressed to you, obviously.)

[identity profile] armb.livejournal.com 2011-06-18 05:28 pm (UTC)(link)
And did she start thinking that maybe it might be equally different for anyone else? (I suspect not, but it can happen.)