MY REPLY TO ROMEPLEBIAN
by Ian Hamilton
In the piece below Romeplebian makes a comment and misses the point. He thinks that a single mother who gets away with £10,000 of Social Security money should be punished. presumably by the jail. Here is my reply.
The rich get very rich. Romeplebian’s take home pay is only a tiny fraction of the wages of wealth. So is the sum the single mother obtained from Social Security. The wages of wealth increase. The wages of poverty shrink. Every financial crisis is a means of redistributing any savings the poor may have to the rich. If you have no savings, Romeplebian, even that which you earn will be taken from you in greater taxes and, when it suits the bankers, in periods of unemployment. Your job won’t give you an eight million bonus, but it will give you heavier taxation which will go to the rich. Wait for it trickling down. Wait for pigs to fly. You and the single mother are brother and sister under the skin.
Single mothers and Romeplebian have no hope of sharing in the wealth of this wonderful country. Their only hope is the lottery. That gives them a one in fifteen million chance of joining in the riches around us. The Roman slaves had a better chance of freedom. It was called manumission. Manumission and the lottery have the same purpose. To give hope to the hopeless. Some hope!
Where has the decency of Old Labour gone? Where is the left wing? Where are the Mick MaGaheys, the Willie Gallahers? Where are the sons of those who went to Spain to fight for us all? Where are the people to cry down the rich from the rooftops; the rich who get so rich they have to hide in gated communities, while a wee lassie is jailed for taking a teaspoonful out of a reservoir? Where is hope?
As for Sheriff Dickhead. I satirise him. I don’t blame him. I was a sheriff once. Then I realised I was there to do society’s dirty work. I was so often on the side of the person in the dock that I went back to defending them. They are not all bad. Some, like the single mother just want a little more for their kids. If a banker gets bonuses in millions. If MPs can get ‘expenses’ in thousands and hundreds of thousands who are we to say that this girl was wrong? Throw the first stone if you must, Romeplebian but make sure you miss.
I declare myself on the side of the disposessed. In my dying years I know that whatever talents I had have failed both them and me.
“PS
NO ONE HAS ASKED ME WHAT THE SINGLE MUM’S SENTENCE SHOULD BE.
IT SHOULD BE ONE YEAR’S PROBATION WITH A CONDITION THAT SHE TAKE LESSONS ON HOW TO MANAGE HER FINANCES FROM HER MP. ”
January 31st, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Mick MaGahey I once thought he was a god and followed him onto the picket line and would do so again if his ghost asked me.
February 1st, 2010 at 12:43 am
I agree completely with your comments, I too have had a period of unemployment, and towards the end of the week would live off noodles and gravy granules.
Whilst I am more than aware of the divide and conquer tactics of using immigrants, benefit cheats,in fact anyone who rallies against the establishment are made out to be rabid protesters, there is also a fine line to cross in my opinion.
Whilst unemployed I only claimed what I could, there could have been lots more, but you had to know how to play the system.
The point I am trying to make is I am all too aware of the innocent need for those who are claiming benefits etc, but I am also aware of many more able bodied people who are given work placements on a regular basis as part of the get back to work schemes , they will do a few weeks and pack it in , not because it does not improve their situation, but because it is easier to sit with the hand out and do sod all.
They have no intention of working and claim for things I was not even aware you could claim for.
Now I cant compare that to the greed of the bankers or the Rothschiilds of this world but I draw a line personally at taking the piss.
If I can live my life by claiming my dues when I can fairly , then I can morally raise my fist at the mp’s , bankers, et al without doubt, because If I couldnt I would be not better than them albeit a lot less well off.
Does my ramble make more sense? , I’ll stand shoulder to shoulder with the next person to fight the inequalities in this world and can do so with a clear conscience. When I compare myself even at its darkest hungriest moments, I was in a better position than a street urchin from Calcutta, and many millions more similar people around the world. I take no pride in being in that better position but I can’t change that, although I would give the ultimate gift were it to change the nature of the world.
February 1st, 2010 at 7:15 am
Romeplebian,
That is why I have hopes for independence. Maybe, just maybe, things will be better. There will always be the scroungers but they live unsatisfactory lives and when there is plenty for all they won’t matter.
The recent book, The Spirit Level, by Wilkinson and Picket, shows that in the small countries of Scandinavia wealth is spread more evenly. Theirs are not broken societies. Crime is less, social sickness is less. But the book requires a seperate piece on its own.
Ian
February 1st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I hope so, as it looks like Westminster clings to the vain hope of empire and wishes to become the centre of the toxic traders when the other countries kick them out
February 1st, 2010 at 2:24 pm
I enjoyed both your post re:Dickhead and your reply to Romeplebian.
The Law must earn respect by recognising cause and effect and differentiating between need and greed.
The ultimate flaw of any so called system, is when it proves not to be a barrier for any fool to reach the top.
February 1st, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Romeplebian, what you are describing, when you describe your ideology towards social benefits from the state, and your perception of morally right and wrong as to the entitlement, is what John Rawls calls a ‘meritocratic’ based ideology of distributive justice. This is where a top-down ideal of ‘entitlement’ is based strictly on one’s own merits and efforts, not their curcumstances nor life/mobility chances in society.
I understand your stance, but am slightly uneasy that you determine it is ‘more moral’ to view distributive justice as meritocratic, rather than that of an egalitarian form of distributive justice.
In both the meritocratic and egalitarian forms, discrepancies of wealth are afforded, (rich and poor), thus complimenting a capitalist economy model for growth. However, the meritocratic model forces the rich to get richer, while the poor get poorer because the distribution of wealth is based on merit, i.e., those that merit the wealth through their own efforts etc, are entitled to it, i.e. the ‘privilages’ of Westminster M.P’s expenses thought as ‘entitled’. But those that have no qualifications, and are not.
In an egalitarian model the rich can earn as much as the market demands, but are also proportionally taxed to accommodate there is no widening gap that emerges as a consequence. Thus, the poor, while they are poor, remain above an ever-increasing standard of living. Even though there may not be a dutiful place available in a vocational environment for them, their life-chances of socail mobilty is increased due to bettering standards of living because social wealth is ever-increasing.
Therefore, in the meritocratic model, the rich get rich because they have elevated themselves to the higher echelons in society through better education, mainly because of affluent backgrounds, and more ammenable social mobilty. But the poor are coralled by the meritocartic model because it stands to reason that for an economy of capitalistic proportions, there must be the means, and there must be the mode of production. And the poor are thus modelled. Even then, so few jobs for the masses exist, thus creating the underclass ‘of’ the working class; of which are a continual underclass and fodder for the upper class maintenace because they can’t ever get jobs because they have been criminalised for said purpose as fodder. Therefore, using moral standards of proof for one’s perspective, especially when discussing social mobility, and life-chances of the poor, holds uneasy and mis-conceived with me because you are thus moralising the amoral.
In other words, the ‘wee lassie’ is representative of the underclass, while the sheriff is representative of the upper class; see my point! The moraliing of this issue depends upon whether the sheriff, and the distrubitive justice system ‘functions’ poverty for their maintenance. But that’s another argument altogether.
February 1st, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Aye! Right!
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:29 am
Dear Sir, Do not be so discouraged. Your voice is still strong. Obama whispers when he should thunder. See BBC’s “Why Voters Do Not Vote For Their Own Interests” for how the disposessed act in a supposedly classless meritocracy. Chimerica!
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:39 am
Dear Mr. Hamilton,
My name is Radim, I am from Czech Republic and I am currently studying 3rd year course of Film and Photography at Edinburgh Napier University. I would love to meet you and film a short documentary about you. Please, if you would be at least slightly interested, can you get in touch with me on my email and I will provide you with more information?
Kind regards
Radim
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I’m glad to see Ian Hamilton holds out hope for a better society as a reason for independence. This is one of my own hopes also, I think we perhaps don’t emphasise the moral dimension to independence, not just in the case of social equality in Scotland but what we do in the world. For example, peace-keeping instead of war-making, conflict resolution instead of creating and sustaining conflict because it serves out own interests.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Hamish, I’ve come to see that Ian Hamilton is one of Scotland’s real and true gentlmen; he certainly has my respect, and I wish him many more fruitful times to come.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Ian’s decency towards myself; I think he knows I’m a political activist, and that my views on Scottish independence are wide and varied, and I am very determined to make as much hay for Scottish independence as I can. And he didn’t ban me for this, he just told me off. Jolly decent I thought.
My sometimes long-winded posts, and conventicle pastoring do convey a contrast to what appears to be just black and white moral, ethical, and social Scottish phenomenon, and you’re right in saying we need to look more at the spectrum of independence through the prism of universal thought.
However, as my posts are essay-like sometimes, I think I’ll move my concentrations to more widely known avenues of recognition; but I will still post here, on occasion, but not as a political activist, nor as a determined independence seeker.
Good luck Ian, and God Bless.
allymax.
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