Betrayal - A Janet & John Explanation

Yesterday I posted about Nick Clegg's new soak the rich strategy and why I thought it was, to say the least, stupid.  I questioned the 'why' having admitting to be perplexed as to whether it was political posturing, a genuine plan or a combination of both.  I remain confused even after the latest revelation that he seems to have checked his plan out with none of his advisers and that the absence of analysis on their part means it is no more a plan than a pipe dream.  It should worry us all that a man who holds such high office and who seems to have such sway on the PM sees no issue with opening his mouth and letting the wind blow his tongue around.  It does not surprise, but it worries me.

There is something else in Clegg's 'strategy' that speaks volumes and shows his betrayal to whole swathes of the population including those because long term his plan can only end in disaster for all.  His thinking will run all of us aboard HMS Great Britain onto the rocks, but not before throwing the genuinely disadvantaged overboard.

 

Clegg's 'proposal' , along with all those politicians who agree with it is flawed from the outset.  It works from the presumption that there is a revenue problem.  

 There isn't a revenue problem but there is a spending problem

Westminster has a spending problem, pure and simple.  Even if they took every penny this year, next year they would want it all again and more. They year after that would be the same.  It's their answer to everything and there's a reason. In these modern times we have professional politicians running the country as opposed to leaders and statesmen.  Leaders work and statesman focus on the national interest.  Professional politicians operate in the self interest.  At the heart of their strategy is what is best for them as opposed to what is best for you.  Their trick however is to dress their self interest up in the notion that they are doing good deeds for you and they do it through spending.

 But there's a problem.  It's one deep down that they know about, regardless of their ideology.  They know about it and they know they need to do something, but the fact that they won't because it will hurt them in the short term is precisely why I titled this post betrayal.

 

Firstly they have handed out money through welfare schemes and such like.  Slowly year by year, this group of recipients has grown.  "Eligibility" and "Entitlement" has grown, year on year, decade on decade.  more and more people become recipients of the state's generosity.  That takes more and more money.  Eventually as we have now, politicians come to realise that not enough tax can be generated from the population so it has to borrow money from elsewhere.

 

In reality this spending needs to be rolled back, slowed down and cut down for reasons.  Modern politicians won't do it however.   They've been so generous that we've lost sight of what we need as a nation, families and individuals. We've had years of conditioning that we're entitled to the fruits of the tree for no effort whatsoever and that we should have these fruits year after year after year.  This generosity has gone on for so long that we have been conditioned to see it as normal.  Therefore any attempt to roll it back and curb spending is seen as evil and draconian.  They've created addicts of us all and we've gone along with it.  Politicians won't try to roll it back because if they do, the blow back threatens their feathered nest, which they will not compromise on.

But now we have another problem - those sources of borrowed cash are drying up.  In other words this charade cannot continue forever.  There are too many countries playing exactly the same game our politicians are playing, effectively buying votes.  No matter how much they want it to continue politicians know we're running out of money for the game and we have nothing more to hock.  

Keep going and it will go bang!

It's at this point the nightmare begins.  Any nation repeatedly conditioned to be fed, clothed and watered ( and plasma tv'd and top end sports weared and annual all-inclusive holdayed) by the state on such a large scale sees too many people become absolutely dependent on the outside sources.  Conversely any self reliance they had simply disappears.  So when the whole thing goes bang, they will have no notion of what to do to feed and clothe their family. 

First they'll turn to the politicians who will turn their back on them.  Despite politicians breeding this problem, they will accept no responsibility for it.  They will leave the dependents to solve it for themselves.  The genuinely poor, needy and desperate will be the first to go under.  Those who took to the welfare state because they were struck with the curse of idleness will be the next to go.  When they go under, we'll see violence as the repeated indulgence of that idleness will first see them take from those nearby who still retain some self reliance.  When that starts we are in dark days indeed.

This is why I call this betrayal.  This self interest and continued spending in Westminster ends up in a very dark place indeed.  Those who will suffer it the first and to the harshest degree will be those whom the welfare state was supposed to be for in the first place.  It has become like a disease that devours everything and that when everything is gone it can only devour itself and will be forced to.

Soaking the rich will not solve this problem and is no strategy.  Another path is needed, one that frees people from dependency and gives those who can, the means to strengthen their resolve, their self reliance and the capacity to make something genuine of their lives.  We have to have a strategy that can fund only those who can't and not those who won't.

What other word can there be for any other path than this by our politicians but betrayal?

What I've written here is not a revelation so some might question why I've written it at all, not least in such Janet & John language.  I've written it and in this fashion, because this is something that needs telling across the country, time and time again.  It should be in the forefront of their mind when they hear any politician continue to peddle more money on more schemes to "help" more people.  It needs telling till it sinks in.  It needs telling by any fourth force (or third if if the Lib Dems face the collapse anticipated for them) in the nations politics in every marginal seat they look to contest.

It needs telling because the big lie that has been told for so long needs to be stopped once and for all.