Posted on 08/03/2007 6:40:03 AM PDT by WesternCulture
A married couple in Kinda in the south east of Sweden have lost a court bid to retain their current level of welfare payments. For almost ten years the husband and wife pair have asserted their right to opt out of the rat race and live on a combination of state support and their own crops.
Östergötland county court disagreed however, ruling that there were no health issues preventing the pair from taking up employment and that their benefits should therefore be reduced, Corren.se reports.
In a letter to the county court, the husband had argued for a reversal of the decision taken by local social services at the end of May to reduce the couple's benefits.
"Conventional work is out of the question for me - both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level - as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally too it creates unbearable pain and dejection," he wrote.
The local council has tried on a number of occasions to convince the couple to reconsider their life choice - but to no avail.
The court based its decision on an interpretation of the Social Services Act, which stipulates that recipients of social welfare payments must actively seek work and accept any subsequent job offers.
The drop in income is likely to mean that the couple will no longer be able to afford the house they are currently renting in the countryside near Kinda, forcing them instead to move to a built-up area. But the married couple are loath to leave the countryside, arguing that they are unsuited to the "atmosphere" in town.
The pair have now pledged to take their case to the administrative court of appeal.
“Conventional work is out of the question for me - both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level - as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally too it creates unbearable pain and dejection,” he wrote.
- He probably exhausted himself by writing this down and couldn’t sleep for several nights in a row due to worries over how this effort might have affected “the well-being of society as a whole”.
*eyes rolling* What a load of crock!
Ghetto Culture meets the Swedish Countryside.
Where in the Bible does it say, "If you don't work, you don't eat."...........
Found it!!!...
2 Thessalonians 3:10
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”
Hippy commune 21st Century style.........
Soon to be tried in the USA.
Reducing or denying entitlements is a civil rights violation.
That sounds exactly like something a blue-blood, Nor'easter liberal (Jidahi Qerri and Swimmer Kennedy) would agree with.
I bet $50 he wins an appeal, if not the first one he will win one eventually.
Any takers?
This must be the new disability called "government sponsored mental collapse".
Perhaps this made sense in Swedish and translated badly. This is just a horrible word-salad that makes no sense at all.
Work, Root, or Starve.
"Consider the lillies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin."
I read the original source article in Swedish - http://www.corren.se/archive/2007/8/2/jbb3af5m4pru0rw.xml - and found some other fascinating statements that the couple made;
To begin with, they claim to suffer from “a divergent personality structure”.
Furthermore, the man writes that he “lacks the motivation to participate in society’s hierarchy of status and sees no other option than remaining a member of the lowest section of the pyramid.”
“Perhaps this made sense in Swedish and translated badly. This is just a horrible word-salad that makes no sense at all.”
- Believe me, the words of this couple makes no sense in Swedish either.
It's contagious. It's actually an epidemic here in the U.S.
Yet again we see a demonstration of what happens when the do-gooders construct a ‘safety net’.
It is immediately seen as a hammock.
MAYBE, just maybe, these folks are “wreckers”, throwing a wrench into the nanny-state machinery.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.