Zero to infuriated in 0.3 seconds

[avevale_intelligencer]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20044862

Lord Bichard, who looks like the sort of person who would say things like that, suggests that pensioners should be forced to work or lose their pensions. This he advances as a logical development from punishing the unemployed for being unemployed by stopping their benefits. Now we shall punish the old for being old by forcing them back into work. I PREDICTED THIS. This is proof if proof were needed that "slippery slope" is not a fallacy.

This smooth-faced, swivel-eyed, gilt-edged unprintable is concerned about people being "a burden on the state."

What is the state? THE STATE IS NOT A PERSON. It feels no pain, it eats no food, it is neither warmed by the sun nor cooled by the rain, it has no senses, and WE ARE NOT HERE TO SERVE THE STATE, THE STATE IS HERE TO SERVE US. People ARE a burden on the state, and it is right and proper that this should be so, because THE STATE IS A BEAST OF BURDEN THAT WE INVENTED TO CARRY US. If we all emigrated to Mars or Narnia tomorrow there would BE no state, and no reason why there should be. (Hopefully we would come up with something better in the new place.) But while there are people here there needs to be a state, and it must serve the people, and servants of the servant like this gink should sit down, shut up, and bloody well show us some damned respect.

No, honestly, Lord Bichard's compassion for the poor overburdened state is moving me in ways I can't even describe. It's perfectly clear that his real concern is that the state will spend too much money on caring for people who can't care for themselves, and then there won't be enough for him. All together. Aaaawwww.

I want to go home.

And while I'm on the subject, I saw Bush giving a medal of some sort to Stan Lee on the telly while an offscreen announcer hymned his achievements (Stan's, not the other guy's) and at the moment when the voice talked about "helping the less fortunate" (being one of the ideals Marvel Comics promoted) I saw the alleged President wink. I don't know what kind of wink it was, whether conspiratorial, sardonic, or simply amused, but I'd very much like to know at whom he was winking, and why at that particular moment.

(EDIT: in the clip howeird links to, the wink happens at an earlier point in the speech. I can't explain this discrepancy, but the thought does occur that if you were trying to ameliorate a disastrous gaffe recorded on video, it would be easier to cut out a chunk of film (and make the image happen earlier) than to put extra in. In any case, it's hardly worth making a Federal case out of it. At least, if nothing else he did is worth that.)

I really don't like feeling like this.

Comments

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

You are right.

The state is something *we* invented to help us ... we're no more of a burden on the state than a skateboarder is a burden on the skateboard.

We already have unemployment, and a younger generation coming through finding it hard to find work ... so forcing retired people to continue working isn't going to make jobs magically appear, in fact it will do the opposite.

This is one of the most barking ideas I've ever heard from a politician (Mitt Romney excepted).

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose you could force those with more than a certain income to provide jobs for those without. In fact, to make it easier for them to do this, you could contract the work out to the Government, and call the money the first lot pay, I don't know,. "taxes" or something....

But truly, that man is a real piece of work....

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

I am sure he would not at all mind gaving the state pick up the cost of all the unpaid child care and elder care and other volunteer work retirees are doing already. Oh, wait ...

And just imagine the fun and expense of evaluating all retirees to determine what work is within their physical capabilities.

Not to mention, that whole (previously mentioned) job-market issue. There are a lot of healthy young people out there who'd like to enter it some day.

Here's a revoluntionary idea (not): How about a national service program for them, instead? Help transform them into people with work skills and experience -- and, eventually, into valuable taxpayers.

Seems a much better investment, to me.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Well, presumably when he says "the state", he means the money "the state" gets to provide for all these people. It gets it from the honest, hard-working, law-abiding tax-paying types, and obviously he wouldn't want them to suffer by having to pay taxes or anything. I mean, that wouldn't be fair, would it? Obviously they'd object.
Actually, no. As an honest etc. tax-payer, I object to people who need help not getting it, in what's supposed to be a civilised society, and I'm completely happy to be taxed as long as that's what's being done with my money.

By the way, I may be missing a point here, but if this is an attempt to buy the vote of people like me.... don't OAPs, the unemployed, and so on, also have votes? One vote each, same as I do? And there's quite a lot of them?

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Seriously? Someone actually suggested sending the old folks back down the mines? God have mercy.

[howeird]

What you saw on the telly was a clip from the 2008 US National Arts & Humanities medal ceremony. Bush appears to be very happy his presenting the medals was as informal as they could be. Here's the official video:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/282438-1
Awards start with Olivia deHaviland at 12:45, Stan Lee is at 17:24. I don't see a wink, but Lee and Bush appear to be bantering while the presentation text is being read. It was quite a range of recipients, and Bush's last go at this ceremony. IMHO one of the few things he did well.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

That video comes up on my screen about postage-stamp size and I can't seem to make it bigger. I was watching a documentary on our telly which is reasonably large, and it jolted me so much I went back and looked again. Right on the cue "helping those less fortunate..." there's a definite and deliberate wink of the left eye at someone off camera.

[howeird]

There's an "expand to full screen" icon to click to the right of the CC selector. Using that, I looked again, and see that Bush blinks right where the fellow says "American comicbook", and he blinks again a second later as he is turning back to Lee. The first one could have been a wink. The camera flashes going off throughout the Stan Lee section makes me lean toward it being a blink. Either way, he is not winking or blinking during "helping the less fortunate". Had that been the case, I'd be furious too.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Look, I've just watched it again, and it is there. I am not making this up. My television doesn't do minutes and seconds, but it's not *during* "helping the less fortunate"; it is as if that phrase was the *cue* for the wink. He seems particularly gleeful throughout the clip, but at that point he does, quite definitely, wink. Unless it's been edited out of your version, I don't know why you aren't seeing it.

I have plenty more substantial reasons why the sight of George W Bush makes me furious. This is just a tiny little detail, and not the sort of thing I would even bother to invent.

[lexin.livejournal.com]

You are so right. I practically exploded from rage when I heard about Bichard's idea.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

"Bichard", rhyming with "Richard", as in "sonofa-"?

(I normally avoid making jokes on people's names. This is an exception.)