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Looking after the old ones

History and Commentary from a Prairie Perspective

Old men are associated with unpleasant odours. They ooze, drool and release gaseous eruptions. They and their lady companions are not welcomed joyfully at such events as symphony concerts or royal christenings. For the old ones, keeping themselves as fresh and a wholesome as the flowers in May is often an arduous chore. They need help. In rural Canada in the earlier years of the past century, the aged were a family responsibility. I remember three-generation households. For a time, I lived in one. The relationship was symbiotic. My grandfather told stories and played spritely tunes on a foot-long harmonica. My grandmother carried a wealth of recipes in her head and her fingers were still nimble enough to crochet masterpieces.

In 2013, three-generation households are rare because it takes the incomes of two persons to meet astronomical mortgage payments - and to satisfy the demands of children's recreation costs and electronic gizmos. When parents are working and children are at school, the only creature likely to be on the property is a dog penned up in the back yard. We can't lock grandma and grandpa in a pen behind the house. There are government agencies that frown on this kind of arrangement. They think family care-givers should house, feed, clothe and launder the Old Ones with little or no aid from government coffers.

This kind of thinking has been around for three centuries. On the foggy seas of academia, learned men coined such terms as "natural law" which posits an unwritten law that is, or should be, more powerful than the laws enacted by government. The idea was to justify resistance to the encroachment of government in private affairs. In 2013, this mouldy theory still survives. Taken to extremes, it means the wealthy are free to gouge and the poor are free to starve.

Old relatives are no problem for rich people, except for the necessity of behaving well enough to be included in the will. The middle class are the ones with genuine worries. They have the responsibility for both aged parents and young children. Some may find not-for-profit homes for the Old Ones and some of these homes may receive government funding. Some of the Old Ones, with hefty retirement benefits, can make their own decisions. They can find places in the champagne and truffle world of the private, for-a-lot of profit seniors' havens. Most of the Canadian population aren't so fortunate..

In order to lower the taxes of those who are able to pay higher ones, we see attacks on unions, retirement benefits and health care. We expect referees at hockey and football games, but the poisonous idea that governments cannot be referees who protect the weak from the strong is still with us.

Governments are the referees in the realities of the life of a nation. Sometimes they fail in their obvious duties and sometimes they are oppressive, but it is a kind of insanity for any citizen to hold that laws and regulations which restrict individual freedom are automatically verses from the bible of Old Joe Stalin.