@ChattyGeePeaTea
One of the many problems with so many know-it-alls about “fancy free Motability cars” etc the cost of welfare benefits is that a lot of people are ignorant of the distinction between looked after children and disabled children.
It’s bad enough that they don’t recognise that Motability isn’t government run or funded and they confuse and conflate the purpose of PIP and DLA (the extra costs of disability) with the purpose and eligibility for Motability but this particular ignorance about looked after children is quite shocking. I’ll leave out that they object to the stated purpose of DLA/PIP being not for specified costs but is to be spent as the disabled person wishes.
A lot of people don’t seem to understand what an EHCP is either.
They see the word “placement” and assume school settings as opposed to precisely what that case was about- being sent to a children’s home.
What they then miss is that a) children’s homes do exist still (they often only find out when one is being purchased in their leafy suburb and then they protest to the council and
b) they are not basic council run facilities but private residential homes that are very profitable for the owners with children being cared for 24/7 often with 2-1 carers for their safety and staff safety.
C) That those children were failed first by their parents who beat, raped, starved, locked up and other horrific things that lead to the children committing crimes and/or becoming severely traumatised and hence are drawn to crime, anti-social behaviour, addiction and county lines gangs.
None of that has anything to do with having educational needs and/or being physically disabled.
The thread was started about Motability cars and as usual becomes a pit of misinformation and rage about how children with additional needs get more than regular children.
It’s a statement of how much damage austerity and so on has done to morale when people resent a child having access to the opportunity to learn. The distaste for disability is evident in the talk about children “who are unlikely to progress much” - we should just round them up and let them play and stop causing resentment by having extra time to take exams or having extra funding to access a vehicle that enables a wheelchair to be used in it.
I presume children are soft targets, which is why it’s seen as fair game.
A lot of these people will have proudly worn poppies to support those who fought against the Nazis who had exactly the same thoughts about the disabled.
They’ll wear poppies to support disabled elderly former soldiers because they worked I suppose. Again a remarkable overlap with National Socialism where one’s value was determined by one’s ability to work until you dropped dead.
People pretend that it’s just the cost of disability that bothers them but some commentators above on this thread and some politicians firmly believe that it’s “not fair” that regular children and regular people should have to brush up against disability, let alone have to tolerate basic accommodations for them or them being allowed to live dignified lives.
Work doesn’t make you free, even if it was in steel above Auschwitz - work makes you able to contribute to the economic model we live with, it helps make life fulfilling if it’s not bone-crushing and unfairly paid. If profit wasn’t put before humanity maybe things wouldn’t be so bleak.
I remember the American woman who was so proud of her son joining the army and very pro-war later railing against the US government and crying when he was killed in combat (the story was depicted in Fahrenheit 9/11) - I think of that a lot when I see people making remarks like the ones on this thread. If or when it’s their child or grandchild or sister or sister’s child or beloved parent and so on perhaps the sadness and rage for how little society respects the basic dignity of their beloved will feel justified to them for the first time.
I wonder if they’ll then reevaluate the comments about putting trackers on Motability cars, putting severely disabled children in day care centres, or worse institutions away from their parents who love them and care for them, the why should THEY get extra time/money when my perfectly regular child does not etc.
I wonder what those people will hope the government will do for them when it’s their turn - and it will be. If it isn’t a disabled child it will be a parent with dementia (let’s round all them up into day care) or strokes or cancer or going blind or severe arthritis-..
It will be their child needing government funds if they lose their job and the job market is poor, when they can’t get a job because all the disabled are in the menial jobs that (as they think, is all they can do) and they can no longer support them with a decent living wage because they voted against an increase in minimum wage and stopping universal credit etc.