I’m also disabled, in case you don’t know. Of course there are actions that people in society take that make it harder to be a disabled person, but that is entirely separate from the physical issue of being disabled. One set of problems is social, and the other is very much real world and physical. Telling Ambi, who deals with paralysis, or me, who deals with neurological issues, that the reason our lives are more difficult than yours is because society is not accommodating enough is bizarre. My actual, physical disability is the reason my life is harder.
People can make decisions for themselves about what treatments they choose to pursue, but it’s ridiculous to state that being deaf, blind, or paralyzed is not a disability. I have never heard of anyone maiming themselves so they can get rad wheels (nor doing it to their kids). No one normally blinds their children because cool science is coming. There are medical reasons, already explained, why deafness is a tricky problem to solve currently. There may be new discoveries every day, but there is no magic solution for most disabilities.
I made a further point earlier that I will repeat. I think that the notion of disability, as in extra difficulty to accomplish life, and the notion of disability, as in diminished personhood are intertwined, and many people have a gut level reaction to that. Being disabled does not equate to being worth less as a person. Disabled people are people, just like everyone else. Some are good, some are bad, some are smart, some are not as smart, some are funny, and so on. They are people. They just have an extra obstacle to making their way in the world. Disability is the word we use for that right now.
Let’s turn it around again: racism is one of the major reasons black society is the way it is. Ending racism would change black society and therefore, ending racism is wrong. Or are you saying that there’s something wrong with black society?
I’m just following your logic.
Being black isn’t a disability. Suffering from racism because you’re black, is.
If there were no ‘society,’ if we all lived in a Hobbesian state of nature, anyone paralyzed from the waist down would basically be dead meat. Ditto blind and deaf people. It’s not like the abled and the disabled were equal in a state of nature, until society came along and made things worse for the disabled.
mikecurtis has a point; our infrastructure should be usable by people of different abilities, to the extent possible. Our walk signals should have both lights and sounds, buildings should have ramps and sidewalks curb cuts, and door should have handles instead of knobs. However, no, our traffic lights do not need sound, because blind people cannot drive cars yet, because they cannot see, and no amount of changing society is going to change that.
He is entirely pointless. He just told a person who is physically paralyzed from the waist down that ‘if you life is more difficult than mine it’s because we’ve built our society to make it so; not because of your “disability.”’ The level of condescension there is immeasurable, and the sheer stupidity stunning.
Society, and its infrastructure, should allow all members to participate and contribute, to the degree desired and possible. I don’t think any decent person could disagree with that. Braille & floor announcements in elevators. Wider door openings
I’m condescending?
Because I believe that a person is not dis-abled because their legs dont work, or they are deaf or they are blind etc? Because I believe that they are quite capable of doing EVERYTHING that anyone else can? That I don’t pity them or believe that they are somehow incomplete because they are not they same as me? That I believe that society has all but ignored them when it comes to the infrastructure that we all rely on daily? Because I respect their choice to change their bodies or not and would never impose my own judgement on them or their families for whatever they decide to do? That I would never make the statement that no parent “with any sense of human decency” would ever choose to not “cure” their child of a disability?
That’s the opposite of condescension you self righteous judgemental holier-than-thou ignorant piece of trash. Pick up a dictionary you illiterate rube and then go back to that sanctimonious circle jerk in IMHO where you can all coo at each other about how you would never let those poor unfortunate invalids suffer needlessly if only life were like a fantasy paperback.
And let me repeat: the deaf activist crowd doesnt give a fuck about cochlear implants or any other hearing device. They consider it child abuse because it’s subjecting a child to a needless medical procedure to “cure a disability” for a condition that they neither believe is a disability or that needs to be cured. And for making children everywhere feel incomplete because they are deaf. That’s why they’re against it. If an adult chooses to avail themselves of the technology for whatever reason, that’s their prerogative.
And all this talk about disability isn’t really a hijack so much as it is a diversion, really. For centuries the “experts” have used arguments based on spurious evidence that the “negro race” was inferior to whites. That they were incomplete, incapable of succeeding in society, in need of the constant patronage of the noble withes. Huey just turned that tactic on it’s ear. Injecting the notion that the white race was somehow degenerating as shown by the correlation to autism. And that this inferiority justifies not taking their arguments seriously. “what gives you the right to rule the world when you cant even prevent your own people from becoming drooling invalids?”
Ha! Well if you want to “argue” with someone who seems to be saying that a blind man can drive on the interstate just like everyone else, go right ahead. I just don’t imagine it being a constructive use of your time.
No. You’re condescending because you’ve told Ambivalid he isn’t really disabled. You’re fucking stupid because you believe that a person who is blind, deaf or crippled does not have a disability. Try to keep up, eh.
