News item: two pensioners found dead.
Old, frail and struggling with the bitter weather, it was obvious that Jean and Derek Randall's lives were at risk. As Mr Randall's health failed and he accepted he could no longer look after his wheelchair-bound wife, a neighbour and the couple's MP contacted social services, the NHS and even Age Concern in the search for a care home place. But, despite weeks of phone calls, no help was provided. Last Thursday a concerned neighbour looked through the couple's letterbox and spotted 76-year-old Mr Randall lying dead in the hallway.
... Last night a neighbour declared: 'I believe they died because everyone who is supposed to care for the elderly in our society did not do it. Everyone passed the buck.' (Daily Mail)
Why were they not popped into a "care home", it is asked – in which they would not be paying guests who were free to leave, but incarcerated dependants of the state? Their lives would not necessarily have been prolonged, they might well have been shortened. And they would have been living at the mercy of other people, and in a decentralised state, possibly drugged out of their minds.
What pensioners need is not "care homes" into which they can be shovelled to end their lives in captivity, but pensions which are not means-tested and sufficient to enable them to employ housekeepers etc. so they can continue to live in freedom without invoking the "aid" of the oppressive society.
"Care homes" run by the state should be abolished, as should state-funded "education".