Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Modern Britain - where criminals are treated better than pensioners

As a follow up to my last post which touched upon how we treat our elderly, I'd just like to make one more quick point.

I can't remember who said it (or maybe I just imagined it), but I recall some quote from somewhere that said "the mark of a civilised society is how we treat our prisoners" - or something like that. Maybe it was criminals, not prisoners, but you get the idea.

If it is a real quote from some luminary of some sort then it is a quote I have always disagreed with. For a start it is entirely subjective. Who is to determine what is civilised and what is good treatment? Isn't it all dependent on context? After all, the Ancient Egyptians considered themselves very civilised but weren't adverse to enslaving thousands and killing thousands more "prisoners" to build their pyramids.

In my opinion, the mark of a civilised society is more about how we treat our elderly compared to our criminals. In that respect I think we are very far from a civilised society of any sort that I would be proud of.

Criminals get free board and lodging, three hot meals a day, satellite TV, games and entertainment while our elderly are largely forgotten and ignored. When we have a society that treats our pensioners better than we treat criminals I might start believing that Britain could be a good place to live again.

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