Why are you doing this? All from one damn :eek: at some guy asking if he had to give up his wheelchair when he went to jail? Jesus. And you don’t need to tell me that my chair needs to be replaced from time to time; I’ve gone through a few by now. 
FWIW, I imagine an artificial leg would have to be inspected and approved too. I’m sure someone could have an artificial leg (or, say, leg brace) removed and they’d have to make do with something else. The alternative is to allow a subset of prisoners to have access to large amounts of potentially sharp metal and plastic. Do you think prison officials should just throw their hands up at that?
You’re just looking to argue.
Quoted without comment.
I feel under freakin’ assault.
Speaking solely for myself, I don’t think it’s necessary for you to provide all the details. What I was getting at is that you’ve made at least one post – possibly more – that implied that the fact that you were successful in your lawsuit (which I now understand to mean you settled) meant that you were clearly right about there having been malpractice in your case. And I guess I’d ask you to at least consider the fact that one does not necessarily lead to the other for an outside observer. While you lived with that case for several years and had a very clear mindset about what happened and how you were wronged, the rest of us don’t have the same perspective that you do.
I’m looking to argue? You’re the one who only gives weasely non-answers to any questions.
You’re just looking to argue. Of course I don’t think they should just throw up their hands. You are being quite disingenuous. You know what I meant in my comment. I said personal chair to prison chair is akin to prosthetic leg to pegleg. Never in my post do I imply that prison officials should allow the original prosthetic leg to be allowed in. I am simply saying that these extensions of people’s bodies out to be replaced with similar, adequate prison versions.
I’m not totally convinced Jamie is a permanent jackass. I just think he’s misguided and closed-minded. I think he has potential to be that which he seems to think he already is as far as being a spokesman is concerned.
I appreciate the quasi-act of contrition and I have to give him props for sticking around and taking the punishment he’s taken, even though it was largely self-inflicted.
How does that old saying go? “Don’t do the crime if you don’t want the peg leg?” I think that sounds right.
See, this is exactly what people are complaining about. A couple of days ago, you didn’t even know that people in wheelchairs who are sent to prison don’t get to keep their own chairs. Now you’re comparing the chairs they get in prison to 17th century medical equipment. I’m willing to bet that you do not, in fact, have any idea what sort of chairs disabled prisoners are given, let alone if they are inadequate to their function. But you’re already beating that Outrage Drum as hard as you can.
This sort of thing is annoying enough as a general character flaw, but what you’re doing right here is actually harmful to the cause of disabled rights in general. Because people see you doing this, and then see you complaining about (say) people parking in handicapped spaces, they’re going to be inclined to dismiss your stories about people taking handicapped spots as more of your usual bullshit histrionics.
Yeah, my heart is breaking.
Well, if, (note the IF), said leg was found to be usable as a weapon, then yeah, I could see them doing it. People have been known to make shanks out of toothbrushes. (They probably wouldn’t let someone use a hook for an arm, for example).
In prison, as long as your needs are taken care of, you really can’t say, “well, I don’t like this chair, I want a different one”. It’s not going to be some generic chair, but it’s probably not going to be something customized to your wants.
But then, you should really be arguing in THAT thread, rather than just posting smilies there.
Am I now?
Bull. You said that people should be allowed to bring in their original equipment and expressed shock that their chosen personal wheelchair/prosthetic would be removed:
I know this subject has little to do with this thread, but come on. Don’t accuse me of being disingenuous and just wanting to argue when you are moving the goalposts all over the damn place.
As Miller says, this is indicative of the root of your problem. Your offend-o-meter is permanently set to ‘instantly offended’ and you just can’t handle when someone else has an opinion or point that disagrees with yours.
Fuck, EVERYONE’S life is hard. You think you’re the ONLY one with problems? Get over yourself.
If said story is true, then this man is a dumbass. If he’s too insecure to stand-up for himself, for fear of causing trouble, and was willing to sit there for FOUR FUCKING HOURS, then that’s his problem. Quite frankly, I’m guessing that being a chickenshit doormat had nothing to do with his disability. And if saying so makes me an insensitive bitch, so be it.
However, the answer is NOT either be a total wimp or a complete asshole. There’s a middle ground somewhere. You don’t just stand-up for yourself – you stomp all over everyone else in the process.
I don’t know the first thing about the condition of wheelchairs available in prison. I was clarifying my original :eek:. I was saying that IF a prison chair, which (for the sake of this discussion) is there there to house any and every person who may need it, is what is offered to someone who must give up their personal, fitted wheelchair, that is similar to someone who has a modern day prosthetic leg being sent to prison and having that leg replaced with nothing more than a peg. I admit to not knowing, or claiming to know, anything about the subject. You are looking to find issue with anything I say. You and others.
Ok. I mean give up their own chair for something that is not tailored for their specific body. That is what I meant by the “shock” I expressed. I admit to perhaps not wording it as well as I could or should have.
No, you weren’t. The word “if” does not appear at any point in the post I quoted, or the one that preceded it. At no point, in any of your comments on the idea of getting a new chair when you go to prison, do you introduce any sort of a conditional at all. You outright state that having to give up your own chair to get a prison wheel chair is the exact equivalent of having to give up a prosthetic leg in exchange for a peg leg. And your wording makes it clear that you are not engaging in hyperbole: you are putting this forward as a literal, one-to-one comparison. Your posts on this issue are phrased as statements of fact.
Now, I’m willing to accept that, in your head, that conditional was already there when you wrote those posts, and anyone reading them should have understood that. But as a matter of objective fact, that simply is not true. And if there is so much disconnect between what you are trying to say, and what you are actually saying, this argues very powerfully for the idea that you are a shitty spokesman for the cause you are attempting to champion.
Yes, we are. Welcome to the Straight Dope. That’s what we do here. However, in your particular case, we do not need to look very hard, because your posts are just *overflowing *with issues. If the BBQ Pit were a baseball metaphor, your posts would be the equivalent of pee-wee league softball. Practically anyone could tee up on you and hit one out of the park, because you make it just that easy for us.
Ok. Like I’ve said, if I’m shitty as an activist for the disabled, all I can do is grow and get better. And it’s not just the “Straight Dope” nature that is responsible for this nitpicking and malevolent arguing taking place in just about all of my threads. I’ve been permenantly labeled an “asswipe” by a certain segment here so anything I say is going to be attacked as the words of such. I think I have to accept a degree of this if I am to continue on here at SDMB.
I’ve seen posters come back from much worse reputations. They did, however, have to work very hard to correct the errors they made that led to the initial reputations.
That’s just not true. Next time you find something that you feel is oppressive towards handicapped people, before you make a scene in a parking lot or take it out on the wrong person or write a letter to the DOJ…slow down, drive home, take a few deep breaths, compose yourself, open a new thread in IMHO and write a post asking for help. I said it earlier and I’ll say it again. If you had came here and said “Hey guys, my local health club doesn’t have a lat-pulldown machine, I’ve asked them about it and they don’t seem interested, can you help me convince them to buy one” you would have had more ideas then you would have known what to do with…and none of them would have involved legal action. Ultimately they may have still said no, but at least you could say you gave it an honest try without putting them on the defensive right off the bat. The window on that one is closed, but give it a shot for the next thing, you might be surprised. Sure, we’re overly technical and we’ll pick things apart and we take things at face value and we can’t read your mind and we can only know what you tell us about yourself…but as a group we’re damn good problem solvers.
ETA, just look at how many people have called you out as a jerk when you’ve said something jerkish, but have given helped you when you asked a decent question. I know I’ve done both things. I promise others will to.