Scumbags. No-one likes Scumbags. Even Scumbags don’t much like Scumbags. And the Irish blogging community most certainly does not like scumbags. Ask Twenty or OneForTheRoad or MJ or any of the numerous commentors on their respective sites. Whatever way you look at it, it’s definitely the latest buzzword and so I decided to give my two pence worth on the Scumbag issue (bandwagon, anyone?).

As I see it, there’s two ways of looking at this topic. Firstly, we have the obvious perspective that all Scumbags are a blight on our society and they should be either hung by the genitalia/sectioned from society at birth/put to work in coalmines or whatever form of punishment takes your fancy. If you’ve read any of the above mentioned blogs then I think they do a fine job of clarifying this point, so no need to go into it here.

But let’s not forget what the Scumbags have done for us…

1. Drugs: If it wasn’t for the Scum, we most certainly would be without our drugs. Drugs are brought over to Ireland by murderous gangs from Morocco, Afghanistan, Colombia and the like and I can’t see a middle class salesman dealing with these guys any time soon. We need our Scumbags as a go-between in order to keep our noses powdered and our rolling-paper companies in business.

2. Knock-off Goods: Everyone’s bought something on the cheap at least once in their life. You know that 42″ LCD TV you just couldn’t turn down at €350? You were told there was a fire in a warehouse somewhere in Holland and they just had to get rid of the TV’s because there was no where to store them. The story is good enough to ease your conscience, even though you don’t believe it for a second.

3. Garda Resources: Scumbags do ordinary people a massive favour here. Sure, it’s taxpayer’s money that pays to have these knackers arrested and locked-up but imagine if the Gardai actually had the time to police the country properly? Without Scumbags tying up all the extra Garda resources, we might find ourselves in jail for whatever white collar crime we’re into (we all do a bit, right?), and minor offences like tax evasion or defrauding your employer might seem like serious crimes. Not good.

And finally,

4. Self Esteem: The Scumbags of this country can do wonders for our own self image. How many times have you looked at a knacker and said to yourself “Thank God I’m better looking/dressed/at reading than them!”. The scum are an important reflection of our own social staus and without them we’d all be a whole lot more depressed.

So before you don your balaclava and crowbar to join Twenty’s vigilante group, think of what our world would be like without the Scumbags. I think you’ll find that they’re not so bad after all…

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 11:36 am and is filed under The Law, Scum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.