Thursday, March 17, 2005

Send Me to Switzerland

Apparently, Our Great Leader has turned his attention to those who claim benefits or, more specifically, incapacity benefit. This affects me directly because that is one of the benefits I claimed when I was ill and, if I relapse, may well claim again. Well, put a plastic bag over my head and inject me with an (un) healthy dose of Phenobarbital. No, do. There is an organisation in Switzerland - Dignitas- which has helped quite a few severely clinically depressed people die. One catch - you have to run the gauntlet of the psychiatric 'profession'. Then there's the money. And I haven't even got over the first hurdle - persuading my GP, Dr. S. to sign a form declaring that I am a suitable candidate for euthanasia.

'I would miss you,' he said. Well, I'm charmed and everything but isn't that a kind of selfish reason not to release me from this cage, from this body I am imprisoned in, from this planet that I despise.

'What about your family?'

Shrug. I should imagine they'd be glad to get rid of me. Besides, if they really cared they wouldn't want me to be tethered to a time, to a place, to a world I don't belong in.

All this sounds so clichéd, so juvenile, so ridiculous but every time I read articles bemoaning the state of the benefits system and the implication that I was a parasite I feel like this. I work part time. Being terrified of other members of my species kind of makes the prospect of a full time job (in the short term, at least) impossible. This sounds like something you'd read in Mein Kampf but if the rest of my species don't want me around then why don't they simply dispose of me, like the Swiss.

'Feeling a little low? Draining the world of precious taxpayers' money? Come to one of our luxurious Suicide Centres® and select your preferred method of Euthanasia.' That's my solution to the existence of parasites such as myself. It's my life - mine to keep and mine to take. But no one's going to stand up and say all this. Even though they're probably thinking it. No one wants to be accused of being some kind of neo-Nazi. F*ck those Nazis - they sure did give what could have been a solution to half of humanity's problems a bad name.

I have another less radical, less shocking solution to the problem of parasitic incapacity benefit scroungers and that is working from home. I have agoraphobia, people phobia and just about every other phobia you can imagine but I am Internet savvy, I can design a spreadsheet/database. Hey, I can write government propaganda. I am not afraid of work; I am just choosy about the place in which I choose to do it. Working from home (or encouraging people to) would solve an awful lot of social problems.

But it would also lead to a loss of control of various major corporations over their employees. And maybe that is what is preventing the work revolution from taking place. Loss of control is so difficult for a government to tolerate.

Or maybe they could just send me to Switzerland.

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