Quote Originally Posted by pilninggas
I don't think that Swanny was taking the 'f*ck everyone else' approach. I live in an area with high crime, when I moved to the area I knew full well insurance would be dearer and that the potential for me to be a victim of crime would be higher. I took a knowing risk.

In the seven years i have lived here I have been been the victim of crime 6 times (attempted break-in and theft amongst other things).

Now I knew the risks, but I still decided to live here - I've never moaned once [possibly about the police's slow response!] and the useless uncaring local MP. A lot of people told me I needed my head reading and still do, maybe they are right. I'll tell you something i don't expect anyone else to foot the bill for my higher insurance costs, the additional measures i have to take etc. Personal responsibility seems to be dirty-phrase these days.

On a footnote, i do think we should cut overseas aid and plough that into long term flood prevention, but of course that also puts me as 'f*ck the rest' type by some of your measures, as I don't give 2-sh1ts about foreign aid to some dictator-ran african hell hole. :P
That would suggest that you have not read his posts, as Scotty has pointed out, read reply #13. I would suggest that someone who thinks that the tax payer shouldn't fund modifications to homes so that disabled people, who are unable to fund these modifications themselves, have a better quality of life and retain their independence for longer, or believes that people on low incomes or find themselves unable to get a job should receive no help with housing and council tax costs, who believes that we shouldn't fund schools to educate our children, has a "f**k everyone else" attitude.

As you said, you where aware of the high crime levels in your area when you moved in, so I guess that in that respect you shouldn't be surprised when you become a victim, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't complain about it, or try and get something done about it. What if you where not aware though, or what if the area had a very low level of crime and then after you moved in the crime levels rose dramatically, would your position remain the same? Would you still be happy about having to fork out the extra on insurance and additional measures? or would you be demanding that when you moved in you believed it to be a safe area, and something should be done now that it's more risky? A situation that many flood victims found themselves in last year.

As for the foreign aid budget, I think that is something that we should be immensely proud of. I agree that in some places we need to evaluate how that money is spent, but I think the fact that we are helping those less fortunate than ourselves is something that we, as a nation, can and should feel very good about. I just want to be sure that I understand you point of view correctly, we shouldn't help the men, women and children of a country who are suffering, starving and dying because of the person/s in charge? That's fairly harsh don't you think? Cutting the aid budget would also mean that people who do need our help, that don't live in an dictator-ran African hell hole, would also suffer, and to what end? so that we can afford to shop at Waitrose rather than Aldi? Given the choice I would rather shop at Aldi, and know that with my help an innocent child might live to see adulthood, or a village gets clean and safe drinking water. That's just me though, I would rather lend a helping hand than turn a blind eye and ignore the suffering. I would challenge you to visit some of these places and see the suffering for yourself, and then see if you still hold the same view that we shouldn't help them, and they should be left to suffer.