Moral bankruptcy

Here again is the Greenwich Union Workhouse, that terrifying institution where several of my forbears spent their last days. Workhouses catered for the deserving poor. Those the system considered undeserving were left destitute to fend for themselves. The deserving poor consisted of the elderly, the infirm, the sick, and those who had suddenly fallen on hard times through what the system considered no fault of the person's own. In return for Christian charity (separation from one's family, a light spot of stone breaking or oakum picking plus compulsory Sunday chapel) the poor inmates received meals that barely kept them alive (mostly gruel and bread with very little in the way of real food).
The whole system was based on the values of the established church, which had its power base in the comfortably-off classes. Poor people of course generally weren't churchgoers except when attendance was forced upon them. After all they generally didn't have all that much to be thankful for.
The morality of that church was twofold. It said that poverty was caused by sinfulness, and was therefore the person's own fault. It also said that one's station in life was ordained by god, and to question it was a sin. The same line was taken when women started campaigning for the right to
vote.
What has happened since? It is almost heartbreaking to see that we currently have a government with very similar ethics. Let's take the deserving poor, for example. People on such low incomes that they need financial help to make ends meet (this was called Out Relief in the pre-1834 poor law system) have seen that assistance attacked by the government and then eroded away. The disabled are currently under sustained attack from the government in the way that 'deservingness is calculated (for example the system currently disadvantages those with mental illness, and the proposed revisions to the system will disadvantage them even more), The government is also looking to reduce the amount of help given to those in need, both in terms of the numbers of recipients and in the amount of help given. The next logical steps would appear to be the abolition of the Old Age Pension and the re-introduction of the Union Workhouses.
If there is such a god as the one whose values guide our leaders, he should hang his head in shame for all the suffering he has caused. The heartless individuals who voted for such a regime should also be hanging their heads in shame, and begging the forgiveness of those who have suffered as a result of those votes.
As a footnote the comfortably-off classes are doing exactly what they have always done, that is look after their own interests and increase in prosperity. I note that rich Victorians paid comparatively little tax, just as their counterparts do now.
So here we are. I am giving an instance of evil describing itself as good. It makes me want to vomit.