John Ward Is My Hero

Councillor John Ward of Medway, Kent, England last week stood up against those who steal from all of us and fail to change their ways. His target: Karen Matthews, who, despite being completely supported by welfare payments, has reared seven children from five different fathers and earns additional money for each child.

Welfare mum Karen Matthews and her allegedly abusive partner, Craig Meehan

To me, it’s quite evident that someone unable to adequately provide for themselves has no place shepherding our next generation, let alone getting paid to do it. It’s an abomination. Mr. Ward agrees: “This is yet another example of ‘Breakdown Britain’, much of which stems from the Government-encouraged change away from the hard-working and decent family structure to an increasingly self-indulgent immoral and state-funded lazy lifestyle. Children become just a means toward that end, and are of themselves of little if any further significance in this new society. I think there is an increasingly strong case for compulsory sterilisation of all those who have had a second (or third, or whatever) child while living off state handouts. It would clearly take a lot of social pressures off all concerned, thus protecting the youngsters themselves to some degree, and remove the incentive to ‘breed for greed’ – i.e. for more public subsidy of their lifestyle [...] With over-population being the root cause of so much that negatively impacts Planet Earth, the very last thing the world needs is to encourage excessive breeding.”

He hit the nail right on the head.

Somehow, the political opposition (Labour) is trying to seize on Mr. Ward’s comments, and have gone as far as comparing his suggestions to those of Hitler. If he were legitimately trying to sterilize women on his own as some sort of vigilante, then Labour would be right to make the Hitler comparison. However, Mr. Ward is only illustrating a problem in order to bring it to light and to encourage thought and debate.

We have a problem – what is the optimal solution?

Because I’m against overreaching government intervention in personal affairs, I’d prefer some system of incentives and/or fines to ensure the number of children in a family is just right. Perhaps having a child could be a privilege for families on sound footing who would be charged a token fee that would go toward elementary schooling. Families unable to pay would be penalized for having children that they could not support.

Stories like that of Karen Matthews are sad for her, her children, and society as a whole. As a society we should find a way to prevent this kind of injustice, and relegate it to the past.

Daily Mail – Calls for Tory councillor to resign after he suggests parents on benefits should be sterilised after one child