Sixteen Volts

I had a dream last night in which I read that Theodore Dalrymple had died in some freak manner that I can't precisely recall but was quite similar in spirit to Steve Irwin. So after I woke up, I had to check that it was only a dream so that it didn't really happen. I wonder what one-word exasperated expression similar to "Crikey!" the good doctor could use as his catchphrase, if he ever turned his adventures among the dredges of the human underclass into a reality television series, in which he humorously showcased the reality of these ugly, smelly and violent beasts and their filthy habits to the middle class viewers. Just like a crocodile doesn't understand that it is being made fun of by a totally alien intelligence that its little brain cannot even begin to comprehend, this show could similarly follow the underclass thugs and losers and let the voice out their thoughts and ideas of how the world works and what their life is like, for the viewers at home to wonder and gasp at.

Yesterday, somebody posted in my blog a comment in which they quoted a recent article in a Finnish newspaper, about unemployment in Sweden. Of course I can't tell for sure if this was a real article or a parody, but there is actually a good chance that it is true, knowing what I know about the Nordic countries. Either way, this snippet is so funny and says so much with only a few words that I think that I'll translate it for my non-Finnish readers to laugh at.

Tina Carlsson, 36, hasn't held a steady job for over sixteen years now. She does not show up in the unemployment statistics, because officially she is temporarily on a sickness leave that the government officials practically forced her to take. Carlsson's time these days is spent in organizing the next election campaign for the Leftist Union. She lives in a comfortable house that she, as a single mother, bought a few years ago.

Jari Vaarma links to the article "Kahden kerroksen aikuisia" that is unfortunately available only in Finnish, but I can summarize the central points of this and many other similar articles in one paragraph. This article asks why the adolescent phase seems to keep growing longer so that many twenty- and even thirtysomething Finnish adults only aimlessly drift in their lives without a steady job or education because they can't maintain interest to anything for longer than a few months. They pay little attention to money or budgeting but simply buy what they feel like, even if they can't really afford it. But they will most certainly not buy a home, start a family or lay down any kind of roots. Since these people consider themselves special and intellectual, they think that normal grunt work is beneath them, and if they don't get to job/play as symbol analysts who work in comfortable offices and have the freedom to create and do whatever they feel like, they will much rather say "screw this" and live on welfare and unemployment benefits instead, or the generous student subsidies that the Finnish government pays to all students who have managed to get accepted to any postsecondary school. This is especially true for the humanities students who constantly switch majors and "search for themselves" when they mostly laze around and take maybe one or two credits each year, getting to the thesis writing when they approach their thirtieth birthday.

But I think that I'll let Jari say the rest, since his post so nicely illustrates the truth of certain almost-cliched saying that is usually attributed to Winston Churchill. Of course this is only one man's view from the present-day Europe and especially the Nordic countries. But as I can personally testify, compared to the Nordic countries, even Canada is practically Libertopia, and once the productive and cognitively blessed Finns who are capable of future time orientation realize that they can get a much better deal elsewhere, and the ratio of freeloaders to productives keeps tilting towards the former group, the whole Finnish system will necessarily have to change. I will certainly look forward to the tearful wailing from the free riders left behind when this happens. So here is what Jari says, with a few clarifying comments of mine in brackets:

For me, this constant "drifting" and "searching for themselves" is a completely incomprehensible and intolerable phenomenon. I immensely despise those losers who "don't know what they want" and thus live on other people's money long into their adulthood.

I know many people who graduated [with a Master's] before they turned 25, got steady jobs, married and had children. Some of them are building a house for themselves, others are writing Ph.D. theses. For some reason, these people mainly vote for Kokoomus [the Finnish conservative party]. I tip my hat for these people. These people sustain the society.

It has been crystal clear for me for years what I want for my life: a steady job, wife, children and a house. In this order. The current way of doing things that means being single until you are 35, chronically avoiding any kind of commitments and keeping all doors open represents, in my opinion, a truly sick way of life.

The real problem is with the system itself. I'd rather see a society that makes these dreamers choose between a "shit job" [a common Finnish expression for any low-paid minimum-wage work with little freedom or prospects of promotion] and concrete starvation. If you can't otherwise get food or housing, you would gladly work even in a sucky job. That's how simple it is.

At this moment, the state and its welfare transfers guarantee that the basic needs of this gang and even more are satisfied. Work just doesn't pay. Those who work have to shoulder the burden of massive taxes. Money is transferred to bums and scoundrels instead of the truly needy. And I can't really blame these bums --- I would take stuff for free if I could.

If you subsidize something, you will get more of it. The bliss of social democracy is constantly creating more and more single-parent families, chronically unemployed people, ten-yeared students, crime, collapsing social cohesion and brain drain abroad. This is why I support shutting down the public sector and the welfare state.

The Western civilization [European, really] is currently facing disgusting choices. It is clear that its current ideals cannot be supported in the long run. The European civilization and the welfare state in the form that we know it is unavoidably marching towards ruin. The next generation will show us the direction that it will go.

I have nothing to add to this, really. Few people are inherently as tragicomical as those who complain that they don't get to enjoy the security and the material lifestyle of the middle class, even though these people explicitly reject and even mock the mainstream middle class values such as heterosexual marriage, education, work ethic, saving and planning for the future and other "square" things that these "edgy" hipsters only find ridiculous.

And as my readers should know by now, I like being smart, funny, obnoxious, and independent, and I love mocking the stupid as much as the next person. I therefore refuse to meekly apologize for my devilishly wicked sense of humor, and promise my readers that I will keep mocking these sorry-ass losers and highlighting the predictable consequences of their chosen lifestyle whenever I happen to encounter them! This will happen quite often, since as a rule, every leftist seems to eventually reveal himself be a loser in his personal life, drifting powerlessly from one crisis to another, his prenumeric brain unable to grasp any kind of cause and effect between his worldview and his reality.

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Friday, September 08, 2006 at 9:34 AM