Do we expect too much as a right in Great Britain?

Agree about the gun- My friend did not write this btw- but only wanted to share on FB. I don't necessarily agree with every word- but do agree that kids are often over-indulged and over-protected these days- and that it does them a disfavour in the long-term.

This is my OP and I will catch up, but there are a lot of long posts and we have visitors. Back soon.

Just picked up the bit about guns. When my son was small I discouraged guns as toys, but capitulated over a pistol to go with his cowboy outfit. A local Dude ranch was a popular party venue and there was a lot more to it than shoot outs, but a cowboy without a gun is like Postman Pat without a cat.

Roll forward 35 years. DS has his own son, guns do not feature in his life or in any of the lives of little boys of his acquaintance. BUT they have all got swords. DGS is obsessed/fascinated by knights. Almost every member of the family has bought him a knights outfit for birthday or Christmas, he has a traditional knights outfit, helmet, chainmail t shirt - and sword, he has a Viking outfit, cavalier outfit, crusader outfit, Roman centurion outfit, all with the appropriate sword.

He is not alone on one visit to a castle he twice nearly got into armed combat with other children also waving swords. One afternoon he spent half an hour sitting on my lap holding a large plastic axe to my throat. He was a Viking and he was going to kill me.

What makes swords acceptable where guns aren't? It is still boys playing killing people - and each other.

I wouldn't really encourage any sort of toy weapon but I can see your point.

I suppose the thing about guns is they are current weapons and we hear about horrible gun crimes quite often, whereas swords aren't generally used as weapons these days.

Knives and daggers certainly are though.

I had at least one gun with caps when I was young (and I am female, so it wasn't just little boys who played with guns). I have not grown up and shot anyone (yet). We used to play cowboys and Indians and I don't think we grew up with murderous tendencies; however, I was not brought up in a country with a gun culture.
Some of the films and games available these days are far more violent.

Tiny children do think they are the centre of their parents' universe and it is only as they get a bit older they learn that the world does not necessarily revolve around them. I think it gives them confidence and they can be taught as they grow to cope with the world outside and realise it is not always kind.
(Not quite sure what this had to do with the original post, but perhaps I am a bit slow this evening. )

I am very thankful for treatment we have received from the NHS, at the same time as being aware of its failings.
I think we are fortunate to live in a country like Great Britain - even though our system is not perfect it is better than some others.

Thanks Eloethan, for your response to the long post from granjura.

I wonder if GrannyTwice has found any of the young people, expecting everything on a plate that Ninny refers to.

What a negative view of their fellow human beings some folks have. I don't dispute there are some young folks who don't live up to our expectations, but I'm certain sure lots of people of all ages can be judged and found wanting, if that's the approach to life that makes us happy.

The UK is a good place to live. The spirit of 1945 hasn't been completely beaten down and my own view is counting our blessings, rather than whinging on would be a Good Thing

To be fair, I do not think that a child having a 'lethal' weapon for a toy means it is going to be violent or tempted to violence when adult. DGD is very proud of her bow and arrow, she pretends to be Merida, the brave Scottish Princess.

DGS knight obsession is a result of watching the Horrible Historys, which both DGC love to distraction. It has given two children now aged 3 and 6 a very good grasp of British history and also chronology. Michael Gove really ought to put them in the primary school curriculum.

Spirit of 45! A great film

I like Merida, she is spunky.

DGD2 is Anna from 'Frozen' at the moment. She is spunky too.

The United Kingdom is a very good place to live .
I am so very glad I am here and nowhere else !!

Well apart from the U.S of A of course

A quick answer is that I don't think we expect too much. As a wealthy country we need to provide for all our citizens in health, welfare, education and housing. This 'right' was fought for by the working people of this country and passed by the government after WW2. In fact, the French revolutionaries called for all citizens to receive equal treatment in the 1790's so it is not such a new idea! The health care system has enabled the less able to access medical care, especially vaccinations for the health of our children e.g. polio vaccine for all this eventually wiping out the devastation that polio causes. In Kenya, the government has not been able to provide the population with this protection and as a result many children still die of the disease.
I've always been happy to pay whatever tax has been taken via the PAYE system to provide benefit and can only say that the care of this financing has not been my responsibility but that of successive governments. I can't say I've been particularly impressed by their performance! If our benefits needed more financing then I would have no doubt been ready to pay the extra needed. Our governments seem to have failed spectacularly in looking after the ordinary population especially in the light of the expenses scandals and various other nefarious activities that seem never ending .
Having lived in both Turkey and Republic of Ireland I can certainly vouch for the fact that although our systems are not perfect they provide the basics. A visit to the doctors in Rep Ireland cost £20 fifteen years ago and a minor knee operation in Turkey over £1000. The ordinary people in Turkey are expected to provide all meals to their sick relatives and general nursing care. On a visit to Australia it cost me £80 to visit the dentist and a similar amount to get a whooping cough vaccination because there was a new baby in our family and we needed to protect ourselves from passing it on.
I think it's an absolute scandal that public housing was sold off so that now my taxes go to pay private landlords housing benefit rather than be returned to the public purse. I'm sure the public finances could have been better managed but I don't believe that any private company runs a public business for the good of the nation. It runs a business for profit and so our taxes go to provide profit for business whilst their staff are poorly paid compared to the equivalent in the public service (if there are any left).
I think we are still fortunate in our public services and look forward to the day when our children's children may be able to get a university education that does not cost them a fortune, public services that are a service etc.
Our lives may not be perfect but I believe that everything possible should be done to maintain what we have left and put more effort into building services for all rather than the best for the few.

Well said, ayse! Your last sentence sums it all up well; we need to protect what we have for the benefit of all.

You raise a good point about selling off social housing ayse we are still feeling the effects of Thatcherism today. It's not the selling off, it's not using the money to replenish the social housing stock.

I'm disgustedly too at the cost of a university education.

Great post ayes - Aka I agree with you that any money raised from selling off social housing should have been spent on replacing the housing stock lost by one of the worst things Thatcher's government contributed to the country.
But - I'm with ayes in saying it should never have been sold. In what have always been hard to let areas, the majority of the former council houses that were sold, are now owned by private landlords. I find it galling that people who were evicted by the council, drug dealers for example, can now rent privately, often of the same street from which they were evicted.

ayse, a well argued contribution to the debate. When I was a member of a metropolitan council in the 90s, one of the worst frustrations was that we held money from the sale of council houses but were not allowed to use this to meet the growing need for social housing. I'd say that the Tory members of council were - though perhaps not vocally - also frustrated by this policy

iam64 if you had taken time to read my post i said some of the younger generation not all of them but i think you knew that but just wanted to have a snipe at me and try and take the moral high ground. the trouble with you and some other gn's you just can't take it that others don't agree with your unrealistic left wing views.
as for the spirit of 1945 i am sure the soldiers you gave their lives to protect our country would turn in their graves that we have willingly surrendered our once great country to faceless bureaucrats in brussels.

I thought the soldiers who died in the Second World War were fighting to save Belgium and France as well as Great Britain.
The Germans took Belgium and the Belgians set up an interim government in Britain. In the first World War, there was a Begian town set up near Chester-le-Street where the women made armaments for the war effort. The Belgians of Birtley, they were called. The township was called Elizabethville.

Thankyou, ayse, for your thoughtful answer.

I do not think that selling off council houses to their owners was a bad thing; however, I do firmly believe the money shoukd have been ring-fenced to provide more housing stock.
The buy-to-let housing boom caused a lot of damage to owner-occupation in this country - (in fact I believe the property programmes on the television also made some contribution) encouraging people to buy up property for rental purposes, resulting in the pushing up of prices and making homes out of the reach of first-time buyers.

The Welfare State introduced after WW2 is a wonderful ideal, but I believe needs to be very carefully managed so that it reaches those who need it and is not abused by others who know how to work the system.
Having spent time Australia, I notice that many people I know have private healthcare. It seems to be something they accept. I am not sure how much Medicare costs in comparison to the contribution we make towards the NHS from national insurance and general taxes.
I hope that the introduction of ObamaCare in America will go well, as it was sickening to hear about such vociferous opposition to it. A wealthy country which cannot look after its less wealthy and able citizens is a country without compassion.

We should not take what we have in this country for granted, but unfortunately I think we sometimes do.

Thatcher did not just start the boom in council house selling. Many houses in pit villages were also sold off. Then when the pits closed the villages became more or less workless. Nobody wanted/wants to buy houses in pit villages, so the miners and their families could not move to get work as they could not sell their houses, but still had mortgages to pay.
That was one of the big cons of the buy your own house schemes.

That was a very good post ayse.

However, if you read Phil Mullan's The Imaginary Time Bomb, you would see him explain the governments (not just mine or yours but several around the world) usage of the ageing population as an excuse to reign in public service provision: us.macmillan.com/theimaginarytimebomb/PhilMullan it gives a brief synopsis on the link. It would appear that pieces are being put in place to bring about a substantial reduction in what the state supplies which will make Britain much more like the countries you have described.

As a wealthy country we need to provide for all our citizens in health, welfare, education and housing. This 'right' was fought for by the working people of this country and passed by the government after WW2

I couldn't agree more with that statement. I have said before that what Hitler failed to do, is now being achieved from within our own ranks. Such a depressing thought.

The Left might view Thatcher as an easy scapegoat. But here's the thing: the 221,000 houses built in Thatcher's last year have never been matched since. Both Labour and the Conservatives have consistently shirked house-building. In the context of spending targets on the NHS or education, housing was for too long deemed an unobtrusive way of cutting. You might get voted out because the schools or hospitals weren't good enough, but whoever heard of a government booted out for not building ?

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timwigmore/100237863/the-conservatives-or-labour-whos-to-blame-for-britains-housing-crisis/

True, Hollydaze. Some people have rose-tinted specatacles. I hope I am a realist.

www.fullfact.org/factcheckscouncil_house_building_margaret_thatcher_labour_government-29270

I need some type of SPECTACLES though.

ninny, I wasn't having a "snipe". I enjoy debates, have many friends of different political persuasions, none of whom describe me as having unrealistic left wing views. I don't enjoy personal attacks and was simply responding to your comments.