2010-01-27

We Fail The Vulnerable

People take to the streets. Power to the people. Raw, raw, raw. I'm down with that.

They scream about proroguing - as if they cared in the past. They chant for environmentalism. They protest war. They march against big government.

Yet. Silence befalls us when it comes to treatment of our veterans and the elderly.

The existing conditions of how we care for our aging population is a miserable break down of our progressive standards. It's amazing we, and Canada isn't alone, didn't account for this. Worse, philosophically we speak, in weak moral platitudes, no doubt in an effort to blunt the looming long-term care crisis, as if they're an expense and a nuisance. We seem woefully unprepared and the only thing we can come up with is moving them around from lousy facility to lousy facility (if you can get one) or pulling plugs.

One chick not long ago railed about how she was "ashamed" to be Canadian because of our environmental record. Her priorities were not in proper perspective. The environment, parliamentary mechanisms or anything else for that matter, should not take precedence over the caring of the most vulnerable people in our society.

When will march for that?

From the CCPA.

Thoughts?

6 comments:

  1. Is not that compatible with libertarianism and survical of the fittest?

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  2. Not caring for the vulnerables, there is only room for the fittest in the conservative and libertarian ideology.

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  3. Paul, tsk. tsk. That's simply not true.

    No where in conservative or libertarian or classical liberal thought does it stipulate the elderly should be cast away because "it's the survival of the fittest."

    They just believe it's not the government's place to take care of it. That's the ONLY difference. They don't believe it's possible to care for all under a statist platform. It's not wrong or immoral to think this way.

    Moreover, without them, we would likely never challenge big brother's role in society.

    Mon chere, it's the GOVERNMENT that's leading the charge on this front. What exactly is so much more compassionate about modern liberal ideology?

    What makes it superior? I don't see it.

    In any event, this disgraceful state of affairs isn't a liberal-conservative one. It's a human issue.

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  4. It is a human issue and the current state of humanity does not bode well for the weakers. The private sector is strictly for profit even if it makes a great show of philantopy. Charities are trying their best...but they can not do the job alone.
    Our social security net is the only insurance we have and governments are the only ones with the means to redistribute, however imperfectly, the wealth that is around and concentrated in too few hands.

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  5. Government is a crucial partner no doubt, but we mustn't put our faith in it. It should be a private-charity-government-citizen partnership.

    I have a problem with the "however imperfectly."

    ReplyDelete

Mysterious and anonymous comments as well as those laced with cyanide and ad hominen attacks will be deleted. Thank you for your attention, chumps.