Our army is big enough to meet even nonexistent challenges – and it’s growing

Just four days ago I bemoaned the fact that HMG in its wisdom is cutting the strength of our armed forces to a meagre 82,000. Now you may be worried that today’s title suggests an about-face so rapid it might cause a nosebleed.

Much as I appreciate your concern for my physical, and possibly also mental, health, I hasten to allay your fears. I’m reasonably healthy and, as far as I can judge, sane. That, however, is more than I can say for our country.

For the army I’m to talk about isn’t the kind that’ll leave bodies in the field, defending God, Queen and country against attacks. My subject is the burgeoning army that not only doesn’t repel attacks on our liberties but in fact itself constitutes such an attack.

No more suspense: the army in question is that of social workers. Of these there are 87,442 currently registered with the General Social Care Council – 5,000 more than in the army that can make the difference between the nation’s life and death.

In addition to those on active duty, the real army has a certain number of reservists, but these will only be called up in case of dire emergency. Not to be outdone, the army of social workers also has reserves: 84,754 freeloaders who are currently in training and will be seeking council jobs by 2016 – with no emergency anywhere in sight.

In addition to its raison d’être, the real army performs valuable social services. It takes young men and women, typically those with bleak employment prospects, and trains them in skills that can then stand them in good stead in civilian life. 

Even more critical, the army teaches them discipline, decisiveness, the importance of mental and physical strength. A soldier also learns to be both self-reliant and unselfish, ready to help others at a great cost to himself. And, if the old adage about there being no atheists in the foxholes is true, a soldier who survives army life will learn to thank God – as useful a skill as any, if only to remind one of the existence of an entity infinitely greater than oneself.

All such qualities are as vital in civilian life as they are exceedingly rare. And one reason they are so rare is the sterling job done by the phoney army, that of social workers. This new model army is growing at a time when the real army is shrinking – a process not dissimilar to cancer, with malignant cells multiplying at the expense of the healthy ones.

Unlike the armed forces, social services don’t train youngsters to pick themselves up by the bootstraps. Quite the contrary, the lesson they teach is how to sink in the morass of idleness, dependency, moral and intellectual torpor. The whole welfare culture is busting a hole in the walls protecting the country’s ethos, and the social forces are the battering ram.

It has been amply demonstrated that neither Britain nor any other Western country can any longer afford the giant leech of a welfare state, sucking the nations’ blood with the help of social workers acting in the capacity of proboscis, jaws and teeth.

The problem isn’t just economic – as with any other social malaise, it’s primarily moral. The West in general and Britain specifically can’t absorb the corrupting effect of a society in which half the people work in the sweat of their brow to support families in which three generations have never held a job.

Society’s poison is the modern state’s meat, for each scrounger – and for that matter each social worker or anyone else who depends on the state for his livelihood – increases its power. Traditionally, this toxic effect has benefited mostly the left of the political spectrum, but these days the parliamentary right and left are converging into one amorphous blob.

That’s why the two curves, those of the army’s and the social services’ numerical strength, will continue to diverge regardless of who inhabits that Georgian semi in Downing Street. This is the lesson taught by modernity.

Now an educational convention, these days falling by the wayside, is that every lesson must be followed by some homework. So here’s the question I’d like you to ponder at your leisure: how many UKIP voters (which is to say real conservatives) are there among our 172,196 current and aspiring social workers? Here’s the multiple choice: a) None, b) None, c) None, d) What are you on, mate?

Lest you might accuse me of being overly negative, I’d like to put forth a positive proposal: instead of risking the lives of our 350 soldiers to be sent to Mali, let’s send a few thousand social workers instead. They could either kill the fanatics with kindness, or else set up a ‘social’ for the muderers, thereby rendering them perpetually weak and useless.

Admittedly, some social workers may not return home. But there are plenty more where they come from.

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