It is with the greatest trepidation that I commit these words to tremulous and spidery life; with an almost insupportable dread, in fact. Hesitantly, and with many a shudder, however, I must confront the terror of the past few days if I am to be granted the merest fancy of surcease of the fear that wracks my once-sturdy constitution. Dear Lord! Did I really write "past few days"? Such is the ordeal imprinted upon my soul, it seems inconceivable that it has been of such inconsequential duration - rather it seems that my suffering had its nascency in a primordial, Cthonic era, and has grown over millenia into its current, all-pervading maturation...Yeah; I've got the wind up something rotten, is what I'm saying - frankly, I'm shit-scared.
And who wouldn't be? Hallowe'en is almost upon us, after all: what better time could there be for darkness to enter the spirit, for awful chimerae to prowl and roar throughout the caverns of the soul? Small wonder that I'm driven to extreme, intense, introspection. When a life-long liberal type - one who has given over his heart to any number of woolly-minded, cuddly notions - finds himself agreeing with a senior figure in a Conservative government, it's a bit of a shock; when he finds himself thinking that - in all honesty - the cunt isn't going far enough, it's bound to make him hit the Gothic prose pretty fucking hard.
The thing is, however, I'm having a hard time faulting the logic of Ian Duncan Smith: there; I said it.
His notion to "cap" various family benefits so as to accommodate only the two oldest children has been pretty universally damned by anybody and everybody who leans further leftwards than Elizaveth Bathory, but I can sort of see his point.
Clearly, IDS' spot of ideologically-based kite-flying was to some extent a Conference-season come-on to the Tory faithful - a seductive gambit that combined economic "common sense" with a scapegoating of the poorest members of society that your average Telegraph-rustling Middle Englander wouldn't resist even if they could, and as such represents Politics at its very worst, but for all that, there's a germ of wisdom amongst the scrounger-baiting. It's just a pity he couldn't have found a way of deterring the better-off from filling the fee-paying Academies of tomorrow to capacity - perhaps by levying a prohibitive tax on the purchase price of those hideous People Carriers?
Prominent amongst the chorus of well-meant disapproval for this proposed money-saver has been the refrain that it "infringes upon the Human Rights" of those in lower income groups to reproduce: having giving it some thought, I can't go along with this in the slightest, though. For a start, it isn't - at least not in any literal sense; it's not as though he's suggesting that roaming patrols of Sex-Cops should be turned loose in Council estates to let rip with stern lectures through a megaphone and blasts from an ice-cold water-cannon at the first creak of bedsprings, is it? No; if people want to churn out mini-mes willy-nilly, they're free so to do - they just won't get any State money for it. Secondly, I don't see propagation as a Human Right; rather, it's a responsibility (the biggest there is, in fact) and an obligation - anyone seeing it as asserting some kind of inalienable prerogative, is on a wrong'un in no small measure. I've never spawned myself - and certainly, at this point, I never shall. Surprisingly, it's because I lack the arrogance to conjure into being a living creature; I just don't have the balls (if you'll pardon the expression) to whip up a nipper and expose them to this unholy shit-pit. How do people do it? Christ on codeine; most people wouldn't stick a kitten into a blender, yet each and every day, they casually usher tiny human beings down the chute into an environment that will have much the same effect as the whirling blades of a Cuisinart upon a cat - only it takes years rather than seconds, and costs a shitload of money. It's essentially a selfish act; the most selfish act, in fact - a flourish of fuck-youism in the face of one's own mortality, and one whose consequences are met wholly by a blameless zygote.
Nevertheless, the human race must go on - apparently. That being the case, it would be wrong - not to say unrealistic - to forbid breeding entirely. Is it wrong, however, to disincentivise it? I don't think so.
People of all socio-economic levels pump out their protoplasm fairly recklessly; either because they can afford to, or because they don't think about it over-much. Just because one can do something, does it necessarily follow that they ought to? Really, what benefit is there in having more than two kids? Do the proud parents-to-be think that their friends are beset with an insatiable hunger to hear yet a third variation on their anecdotes about a sleepless night that ended with a facefull of sprog-spew? Are their own lives so empty and devoid of purpose that they can only feel truly alive when they're going through the Mr Men books yet again? Is it a case of "third time's the charm", and on the latest go-round, the grisly, protracted ordeal of showing a toddler how to put its shoes on or refrain from sticking a sweetie into the DVD player will become a joyous, glorious lark? Again; I don't see it. Put simply: we've got enough people in the world as it is; what do you think your DNA has to offer the gene-pool in large quantities? I can't imagine many couples shuddering in post-coital delight and drowsily reflecting upon how they've just beast-with-two-backed themselves an eventual cure for AIDS, can you?
The other objections to IDS scheme barely merit mention: "what about religious or cultural norms?" Well; what about them? While the late Mr Christ may have been right when he said that "In my Father's house are many mansions", but that doesn't alter the fact that down here, affordable homes (both in the form of social housing and in the private sector) are getting rarer than people who weren't diddled by celebrities in the 1970s - there may not be many mansions, but there are a fair few two-bed semis that cost about the same.
We live in an age of paradoxically shrinking resources and ever-greater consumerism, with everybody wanting (or at least being told pretty convincingly that they want) a lot more from a lot less: why exacerbate it? The era of the immense, sprawling family should be over; no longer should anybody (whatever their income) feel entitled to found yet another dynasty - even if they can afford it personally, the world can't.
To conclude, I shall borrow freely from the wisdom of another egregious demagogue with a flair for Mail-reading morality: when addressing the human jetsam that wash up upon his stage, Jeremy Kyle often harangues them with the admonition to "man up, get a job, and put something on the end of it". "Manning up" is pretty relative, of course, while getting a job is still something of a stumbling-block for many; putting something on the end of it, however, is something that anybody can do - and bloody well should do, at that.
Of course; having partially-agreed with both Ian Duncan Smith and Jeremy Kyle, I see little point in anything other than a quick and painless death: it's to be hoped that the sight of my corpse dangling in the front hall will provide a suitably Hallowe'eny frisson for trick-or-treating kids - just as long as there's not too many of the little bastards.
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