Financially Ruined Greece Decides Pedophiles Qualify for Government Disability

It’s no secret: Greece is broke and the country is in disarray.

As noted earlier on The Blaze:

Their debt levels are unsustainable; Prime Minister George Papandreou resigned after causing a stir by calling for a referendum vote on the EU’s “bailout” agreement…and let’s not forget reports of the Greeks resorting to starvation diets and/or rioting…

They are [also] at the point where they are putting up state property as collateral…

Perhaps things wouldn’t be this bad if Greece hadn’t created an unsustainable culture of entitlements. Perhaps public sector employees wouldn’t be taking to the streets and rioting over austerity measures if, say, Greek Parliament had never promised them jobs that were “constitutionally guaranteed for life.”

Greece has no money, a rock-bottom fertility rate, and generations of retired public sector employees expecting to collect pension checks from a workforce that will not exist.

With all of the problems mentioned in the above, is it any wonder that economists have been terrified of Greece’s downward spiral into financial chaos and the threat it has posed to the rest of eurozone?

The situation is bad -- but -- at least EU leaders are working hard to fix things, right? What could go wrong? Greek politicians, that's what. Just when you thought they couldn’t do anything to make matters worse, they find a way.

Take, for instance, the Greek government's recent decision to expand its list of state-recognized disabilities so that it includes pedophiles, exhibitionists and sadomasochists.

Let that sink in for a moment. The state -- the official Greek government -- has agreed to recognize pedophilia as a “disability.”

Greece’s National Confederation of Disabled People called the action "incomprehensible," and said pedophiles are now awarded a higher government disability pay than some people who have received organ transplants, writes the Associated Press’ Nicholas Paphitis.

How could they possibly justify this decision?

“The Labor Ministry said categories added to the expanded list -- that also includes pyromaniacs, compulsive gamblers, fetishists and [kleptomaniacs] -- were included for purposes of medical assessment and used as a gauge for allocating financial assistance,” Paphitis writes.

Now let that sink in for a moment.

To be clear, Greece has decided that exhibitionists, sadomasochists and pedophiles qualify as "disabled" and are therefore eligible for government support.

"What's happened is incomprehensible. Is there some big mistake. The ministry should have a different policy on disability," Vardakastanis told the Associated Press. "The list contains major changes to disability quotients, which could effectively remove many people from access to benefits."

But the problem isn't that people might be removed from “access to benefits”! The problem is that the state recognizes pedophilia as a disability rather than a high crime against nature!

In fact, the revamped disability list gives pyromaniacs (how do you even qualify for that?) and pedophiles disability pay up to 35 percent, compared to 80 percent for heart transplant recipients.

"It's really not serious to grant Peeping Toms a 20-30 percent disability rate, and 10 percent to diabetics, who have insulin shots four or five times a day," said Vardakastanis.

Adding to an already unbelievable situation, the Greek government has also been forced to reassess tens of thousands of disability recipients after it discovered widespread abuses in the system.

Has it really come to this?

In the midst of all of its problems (i.e. rioting and financial collapse), has the Greek state really decided to expand its culture of entitlement to include pedophiles, sadomasochists and exhibitionists?

At this point, EU leaders should abandon all attempts to save this small and feeble country and cut their losses. When it gets to the point where child molesters, pyromaniacs and sadomasochists are all standing in the same line waiting to collect disability checks, it’s already over. It's going to take a lot more than austerity measures to save Greece; its problems are much deeper than that.

The Blaze used this quote a few days ago and it bears repeating:

Greece is at the point in the plot where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal meltdown); the Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.*

Actually, given the decision by Greek lawmakers to welcome pedophiles, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, exhibitionists, and sadomasochists under the entitlement umbrella, perhaps we should modify this quote:

The Greeks are well past Chapter Twenty; they're just putting the finishing touches on the Epilogue.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

*Mark Steyn, “After America: Get Ready For Armageddon.” (Washington, D.C: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2011) 104.