Posted on 08/03/2007 6:40:03 AM PDT by WesternCulture
A married couple in Kinda in the south east of Sweden have lost a court bid to retain their current level of welfare payments. For almost ten years the husband and wife pair have asserted their right to opt out of the rat race and live on a combination of state support and their own crops.
Östergötland county court disagreed however, ruling that there were no health issues preventing the pair from taking up employment and that their benefits should therefore be reduced, Corren.se reports.
In a letter to the county court, the husband had argued for a reversal of the decision taken by local social services at the end of May to reduce the couple's benefits.
"Conventional work is out of the question for me - both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level - as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally too it creates unbearable pain and dejection," he wrote.
The local council has tried on a number of occasions to convince the couple to reconsider their life choice - but to no avail.
The court based its decision on an interpretation of the Social Services Act, which stipulates that recipients of social welfare payments must actively seek work and accept any subsequent job offers.
The drop in income is likely to mean that the couple will no longer be able to afford the house they are currently renting in the countryside near Kinda, forcing them instead to move to a built-up area. But the married couple are loath to leave the countryside, arguing that they are unsuited to the "atmosphere" in town.
The pair have now pledged to take their case to the administrative court of appeal.
“Conventional work is out of the question for me - both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level - as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally too it creates unbearable pain and dejection,” he wrote.
- He probably exhausted himself by writing this down and couldn’t sleep for several nights in a row due to worries over how this effort might have affected “the well-being of society as a whole”.
*eyes rolling* What a load of crock!
Ghetto Culture meets the Swedish Countryside.
Where in the Bible does it say, "If you don't work, you don't eat."...........
Found it!!!...
2 Thessalonians 3:10
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
Hippy commune 21st Century style.........
Soon to be tried in the USA.
Reducing or denying entitlements is a civil rights violation.
That sounds exactly like something a blue-blood, Nor'easter liberal (Jidahi Qerri and Swimmer Kennedy) would agree with.
I bet $50 he wins an appeal, if not the first one he will win one eventually.
Any takers?
This must be the new disability called "government sponsored mental collapse".
Perhaps this made sense in Swedish and translated badly. This is just a horrible word-salad that makes no sense at all.
Work, Root, or Starve.
"Consider the lillies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin."
I read the original source article in Swedish - http://www.corren.se/archive/2007/8/2/jbb3af5m4pru0rw.xml - and found some other fascinating statements that the couple made;
To begin with, they claim to suffer from “a divergent personality structure”.
Furthermore, the man writes that he “lacks the motivation to participate in society’s hierarchy of status and sees no other option than remaining a member of the lowest section of the pyramid.”
“Perhaps this made sense in Swedish and translated badly. This is just a horrible word-salad that makes no sense at all.”
- Believe me, the words of this couple makes no sense in Swedish either.
It's contagious. It's actually an epidemic here in the U.S.
Yet again we see a demonstration of what happens when the do-gooders construct a ‘safety net’.
It is immediately seen as a hammock.
MAYBE, just maybe, these folks are “wreckers”, throwing a wrench into the nanny-state machinery.
“It’s contagious. It’s actually an epidemic here in the U.S.”
- While we still have very much of a welfare state in Sweden, attitudes to work have changed much since the 1970’s and 1980’s. At that time, the Social Democrats (while they were in power) even nurtured ideas about introducing a sort of ‘citizen salary’ (paid by the government) that everyone was to be entitled to, regardless of work efforts.
Since the economic crises of the 1990’s, work ethics have improved considerably in Sweden and the unions have been more realistic and responsible.
At the same time the Sweden began to wake up, Germany and France decided to introduce the 6 hour work day. The basic belief among politicians and unions was that it ought to be possible for the population to work less while still raising consumption levels year by year. That strategy has failed disastrously, while countries like the US, the UK, Ireland and the Scandinavian ones have enjoy a considerable improvement of their standard of living.
I sincerely hope the Americans will avvoid repeating the mistakes Scandinavia made in the 1970’s and early 1980’s and the mistakes Germany and France made in the 1990’s.
Is he saying he’s too STUPID to find work, or too mentally superior to work?
“- He probably exhausted himself by writing this down and couldn’t sleep for several nights in a row due to worries over how this effort might have affected “the well-being of society as a whole”.”
His quote sounds more like something that a Dostoyevsky character would write.
Eventually there will be no one to pull the wagon as everyone has jumped in expecting someone else will do it.
Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money to spend.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Hey, the trench dude doesn’t even belong with the food service folks. Even as a laborer folks make around $15-20 an hour doing that stuff, and I make around 70K a year doing stuff that involves trenches occasionally :-)
BTW, that pic is also showing an OSHA violation (entry into unshored >5 feet, unless certified by someone qualified trench/excavation evaluation)...
The line of work I'm in... dealing with Medicaid patients... there is now a sense of entitlement involved. Used to be, people were ashamed at having to take handouts and welfare. Not anymore. They almost wear it like a badge of honor.
The problem is... gov't programs have made it so easy for them NOT to work for the past generation....that the people who utilize the system believe it all comes from the money fairy...and it's free. They almost appear stunned when you inform them where the funds come from. (some could care less) Very sad. Unless there is a big change, the next generation seems doomed to get worse.
That guy sounds like a keeper. Wonder if he has a single brother. /sarc
****************
LOL!!
It’s a tough decision to opt out of working for a living without some kind of self-sufficiency or at least a contractually guaranteed retirement program. Schopenhauer said leisure was a boon to a person with a productive mind, but worse than useless to most. This couple does not sound like ones with productive minds.
“This couple does not sound like ones with productive minds.”
Agree. The only area in which they seem productive is finding ridiculous excuses for idleness.
“The problem is... gov’t programs have made it so easy for them NOT to work for the past generation....that the people who utilize the system believe it all comes from the money fairy...and it’s free. They almost appear stunned when you inform them where the funds come from. (some could care less) Very sad. Unless there is a big change, the next generation seems doomed to get worse.”
- It seems like most societies need a rude awakening from time to time in order to make their citizens realize the necessity of hard work. Many countries have benefited from such experiences, while there, admittedly, also exist nations that have been on a downward slope for decades, like Argentina.
I visited the US (Fla.) in the early 1990’s when there was an economic recession in both your country and mine (Sweden). My impression was that, during that time, you went through a process similar to the one we experienced. There was a widespread fear of a ‘new depression’ and a lot of people in both our countries felt like we had ‘failed’ in the field of economy. But you came back and so did we.
Since then, The US and Sweden (as well as the rest of the Scandinavian countries) have been among the fastest growing economies in the industrialized world, while countries like Germany, Italy and France completely seem to have forgotten about an important thing in life called ‘work ethics’. However, it finally seems like these big European countries are beginning to understand some changes are necessary.
Fine. Then let ‘em suck their nutrients from the soil, too.
Wonder who he thinks is paying to support him?
How much of that 70k do you get to keep ...after the gov't dips into it to pay for those who won't earn one?
This couple confessed they've chosen this life. Fine. Let them do what others have in the past. IOW...Sit on the corner and beg, dig through trash for food...etc. Some in our society work harder at not working... than if they actually had a job.
You sound like you think I was defending the couple. Nothing could be further from the truth, I loathe parasites, both created and elected...
Nope... just giving an opinion. Sorry you took it that way. :)
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