Interesting point of view from Alan Graham in his blog Trial and Error. I moved from the UK to the US for the opposite reason. I saw too much entitlements in the UK that I think people sometimes need to be left to fight for themselves.

Plenty of my friends have no ambitious to better themselves because there is no need. Their jobs pay for their basic needs and if they lose the job, the government is going to pay for their living cost. In fact some people decide that living on social security (or the ‘dole’ as we call it in the UK) is the preferred choice. They lack the education or skills to get jobs that pay more than what the government pays them.

It disgusts me when my father-in-law’s live in girlfriend lost her job months ago and only recently try to seek a job seriously. Oh she looked right after she lost her job but apparently none pay as much or as close as she wanted. She could have gotten a lesser pay job in a further away town within a month or so. But no, she waited and searched for more. Only now that her financial situation is such a dire strait that she has to take a job, any job in fact, that she is willing to work for less and travels further.

I believe Alan and I want the same thing, which is some middle ground between his experience and mine. I believe that people should have basic to good medical care and emergency help from the government. But yet, help should not be so substantial or everlasting (or almost everlasting) that one can live comfortable on it without the need to get a job.

Last Friday night as I was sitting in my assigned seat, waiting for my red eye flight to take off, the flight attendant went through the special safety instruction for the people a few rows in front of me. Basically it said that if there were an emergency, those people has to help open the doors for evacuation over the aircraft wings. Easy right? That was until the flight attendant enquired that any of those passengers spoke english! Two of the passengers apparently did not so they had to swap seats with another two passengers who do speak english.

Huh? Why does one need to know english to know the plane is crash landing and when it finishes crashing, one has to open the damn door so everyone can get out?

At least this incident provided some comic relief for those of us tired bodies that night.

Rain, rain, and more rain…