Daniel Pipes has said similar things. As has a former ambassador to the UN from Israel. As have literally dozens of wingnuttier members of the conservative blogosphere. Which prompts the question, why did you bother to deny that anyone has said such a thing in the first place, if not for the fact that you read what my position is, and then immediately argue the opposite without discretion?
I did ask you about the effects of the Wahabbi invasion on Indonesia, since I think it has destroyed traditional Indonesian tolerance. I was quite clear that I was asking you, as a self-styled expert on that country, to confirm or deny my own perception, which is apt to be mistaken.
That's a frivolous and irresponsible question when it's asked without a shred of evidence or context to explain why you would think such a thing.
Bill Maher, for example, has repeatedly said that all terrorists are Muslims. Rod Dreher has said the same. There are very many others.
If you would actually read my posts, Roque, you would see that I am not claiming that most terrorists aren't Muslims. I am simply correcting a commonly held, but factually untrue statement, and in fact am making plain that this is all that I'm doing. It takes a special lack of self-criticism to complain of straw-manning by engaging in it.
I promise you, as a matter both of personal anecdote and of expertise, I'm better equipped to judge Indonesia's Muslim culture, and to call it fanatical is simply in error.
If you guys are really ready to jettison the concept of assigning harshest punishments to more costly crimes, I'd like for you all to totally flesh out the philosophical and legal consequences of that. Because they're vast.
No, we probably shouldn’t be in the business of creating special protections for homeless victims,
Sullivan too seemed to find this so obvious as to not require explanation. But why? Homeless people need special protection because they are inordinately the victims of random crimes, not simply because they are stuck on the street but because they are targeted by people who believe, often correctly, that there won't be any consequences for hurting them. They are precisely the people who need hate crimes legislation the most.
If we save 3 to 5% of the military budget, what do we do with the savings, redistribute it to the unfortunate poor or reduce the tax burden for those who actually pay taxes.
Well, let's imagine. The budgeted amount for defense in 2008 was about $517 billion dollars. Note again, that doesn't include the budgets for the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are appropriated separately, nor does it include nuclear weapons, nor does it include the Department of Homeland Security. So the actual amount we spend on defending the country is much higher.
But let's just stick with the budgeted figure. It's my claim that we could reduce the defense budget by as much as 5% and still remain entirely unrivaled on a military level; we could still provide for our own defense and the defense of our allies. That five percent of the $517 billion is about $26 billion dollars.
Where to put it, spending, tax cuts or paying down the debt? How about all three? The 2007 proposed increase in S-CHIP, vetoed by President Bush, would have cost about $7 billion a year. So let's fund S-CHIP expansion, increase health care access for children, and please lefties like me. That leaves $18 billion. Let's hand out an $8 billion payroll tax cut for working class and middle class families. That leaves $10 billion dollars to go towards slowing the accumulation of national debt, with a valuable social program and a payroll tax cut, all without ending the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan.
An often overlooked aspect of this fight: human rights are not something people deserve. You don't earn human rights, through good behavior or anything else. You have them by virtue of being human.
The idea that society deals with autistic people with disrespect and in a way that is counterproductive to even its own stated goals does not necessarily preclude those who hold that idea from wanting to help the children function better
I have a hard time imagining a group who are more respected than those who suffer with autism, actually.
Jaybird, I'm sorry, but you simply can't force me to be saying something I'm not saying.
No one in the autistic-led advocacy movement argues that autistic children don’t need help to learn how to function well in society
I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. Click the link, and you'll find people who think that it is society that is wrong, and not the children.
I’ve no doubt that the eugenics you’re proposing will have any less of a human cost than previous versions.
Ah, yes, eugenics. As I've explicitly denied that people should be forced into any kind of treatment, or any kind of treatment for their children, that's "eugenics".
I think the greatest impediment to this dialogue is that we so often think of autism as being a lesser type like Aspergers, or just shyness, or just social discomfort, etc-- not, say, the child who breaks his own arms, or the one left entirely nonverbal, or the one whose behavioral disability is so great he is literally incapable of interacting in society. If we're going to have an honest conversation, we can't keep imagining autism to produce nothing but beautiful dreamers. That's a big part of what I'm reacting against; the public conversation on autism has become dominated by a entirely romanticized vision of the disorder, which is profoundly different from the way most families afflicted by autism experience it. Many people with autism are not budding Einsteins having their creativity crushed by the Man; many are deeply, deeply impaired people who are being prevented from living the kind of lives they would like to be able to.
So the first step is to stop thinking that Aspergers is the correct lens to view this condition. More importantly, I think people need to stop acting as though autism is a set of personality traits, or that personality traits flow from the disorder, and recognize that what makes autism a disorder are the aspects of it that damage human lives. And I think that a tremendous disservice has been done to many people struggling with a host of mental health issues because so many people confuse mental disorders with personality traits that tend to come with them. How many violently depressed people have been chased away from using medication that could materially improve their lives, because they've been sold on the story that they'll turn into some emotionless zombie by anti-depressants? And how many of them have devolved deeper into self-destruction, addiction or suicide?
Those disinclined to view autism are going to elide the disorder with the aspects of personality in autistic people that they enjoy, for the purpose of leveraging their opinion. "See, this autistic person has (positive personality trait X), why would you want to remove that?" But I don't. I just don't think that autism causes dreaminess or curiosity or anything of that nature. Surely, you can be dreamy or shy or unfocused and not have ADHD, or autism, and I believe it is a symptom of an over-medicalized culture that so many people believe that having personality traits similar to a mental disorder is proof positive that one has the disorder. No, I don't want to use medication to remove artiness or dreaminess or introspection or interiority. I do want our society to privilege a view of autism that recognizes that it is on balance much better to treat people who have their lives deeply damaged by a debilitating disorder, people who can barely or cannot communicate, people who hurt themselves or others, people who can't live with the full expression of human interaction that they otherwise would be able to. Keep the aspects of personality that you like, but don't pretend that those aspects are somehow incontrovertibly linked to a historically quite rare developmental disorder.
By the way, since some commenters insist on strawmanning me, as I have said explicitly, I am not arguing for forcible treatment or any such thing. I am arguing for a society that has the courage to not confront all differences as if they were all of equal moral or practical content. (Which they tend not to apply to schizophrenia, or pedophilia, or a disposition towards misogyny....)
I'm saying that the analogy to homosexuality is false, and more, it's just a pathetic gotcha. I don't think that there is any meaningful congruity between the two, and I reject the notion that an opinion about one leads to any opinion about the other. But people can't seem to grasp that.
Would this sentence have made sense in 1950 regarding homosexuality?
Again, that is precisely the categorical vision of difference that I am rejecting. I know, I know-- it's very cute. It's framed in exactly the way I'm arguing against.
On the other hand, a lot of us who have Aspergers or High Functioning Autism, don’t feel or desire to be “normal.” What you fail to understand is that many of us have tried to fit in and tried hard to pretend. At some point, you get tired of pretending.
I'm not asking you to fit in, or to try to pretend. Wouldn't do that.
I guess my whole point is that you need to really understand the wide range of opinions concerning autism, especially among those of us who are adults with autism, instead of lumping us all into one basket and deciding what is best for us.
I am not deciding what is best for you, nor am I insisting that you undertake any particular kind of treatment. I am advocating that as a society we respect medical science and our conception of what it means for a condition to be a disorder and continue to confront autism as a negative condition that we should work to overcome.
On “Where We Fight”
There was never any operational connection between the various Iraqi insurgencies and Al Qaeda, and barely an ideological connection.
On “Terror Talk”
http://lhote.blogspot.com/2008/07/glenn-loury-makes-case-that-we-should.html
On “it was never the case that all terrorists were Muslim”
No threat, Roque, just to say that if you are entitled to say " I don't want to justify this", then so am I.
On “the disposition”
Food for thought, Alex, thanks.
On “it was never the case that all terrorists were Muslim”
Sure. But you'll be held to the same standards that you apply to yourself.
"
Daniel Pipes has said similar things. As has a former ambassador to the UN from Israel. As have literally dozens of wingnuttier members of the conservative blogosphere. Which prompts the question, why did you bother to deny that anyone has said such a thing in the first place, if not for the fact that you read what my position is, and then immediately argue the opposite without discretion?
I did ask you about the effects of the Wahabbi invasion on Indonesia, since I think it has destroyed traditional Indonesian tolerance. I was quite clear that I was asking you, as a self-styled expert on that country, to confirm or deny my own perception, which is apt to be mistaken.
That's a frivolous and irresponsible question when it's asked without a shred of evidence or context to explain why you would think such a thing.
"
Bill Maher, for example, has repeatedly said that all terrorists are Muslims. Rod Dreher has said the same. There are very many others.
If you would actually read my posts, Roque, you would see that I am not claiming that most terrorists aren't Muslims. I am simply correcting a commonly held, but factually untrue statement, and in fact am making plain that this is all that I'm doing. It takes a special lack of self-criticism to complain of straw-manning by engaging in it.
I promise you, as a matter both of personal anecdote and of expertise, I'm better equipped to judge Indonesia's Muslim culture, and to call it fanatical is simply in error.
On “congratulations are in order…”
You beat me to it!
On “personal computing”
Yeah I took a ride on Bolt bus from New York to DC and back, and that had free Wi-Fi. Seems to make a big difference.
On “the campaign finance law we have sucks only a little more than the alternative”
“Yes, it may be Unconstitutional, but it’s totally necessary!”
Am I crazy, or didn't I explicitly say I was against this law, and very skeptical of campaign finance reform generally?
On “Master of Divinity”
Congratulations, Chris!
On “Silly Arguments Against Hate Crimes Legislation”
If you guys are really ready to jettison the concept of assigning harshest punishments to more costly crimes, I'd like for you all to totally flesh out the philosophical and legal consequences of that. Because they're vast.
"
Do you really see an additional law that won’t get any more enforced than the ones already in place as “special protection”?
It's not unheard of for harsher punishments to lead to reduced rates of the crime in question.
"
No, we probably shouldn’t be in the business of creating special protections for homeless victims,
Sullivan too seemed to find this so obvious as to not require explanation. But why? Homeless people need special protection because they are inordinately the victims of random crimes, not simply because they are stuck on the street but because they are targeted by people who believe, often correctly, that there won't be any consequences for hurting them. They are precisely the people who need hate crimes legislation the most.
On “defense spending: still spending”
If we save 3 to 5% of the military budget, what do we do with the savings, redistribute it to the unfortunate poor or reduce the tax burden for those who actually pay taxes.
Well, let's imagine. The budgeted amount for defense in 2008 was about $517 billion dollars. Note again, that doesn't include the budgets for the ongoing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are appropriated separately, nor does it include nuclear weapons, nor does it include the Department of Homeland Security. So the actual amount we spend on defending the country is much higher.
But let's just stick with the budgeted figure. It's my claim that we could reduce the defense budget by as much as 5% and still remain entirely unrivaled on a military level; we could still provide for our own defense and the defense of our allies. That five percent of the $517 billion is about $26 billion dollars.
Where to put it, spending, tax cuts or paying down the debt? How about all three? The 2007 proposed increase in S-CHIP, vetoed by President Bush, would have cost about $7 billion a year. So let's fund S-CHIP expansion, increase health care access for children, and please lefties like me. That leaves $18 billion. Let's hand out an $8 billion payroll tax cut for working class and middle class families. That leaves $10 billion dollars to go towards slowing the accumulation of national debt, with a valuable social program and a payroll tax cut, all without ending the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan.
On “An Exceptionally Moral United States”
There is no value to the question, "Is America more or less moral than other countries?" There is only value in the question, "Is America moral?"
On “The Right to Exist”
An often overlooked aspect of this fight: human rights are not something people deserve. You don't earn human rights, through good behavior or anything else. You have them by virtue of being human.
On “wed funnies”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34sqrLWF_tQ
On “autism is a disorder”
The idea that society deals with autistic people with disrespect and in a way that is counterproductive to even its own stated goals does not necessarily preclude those who hold that idea from wanting to help the children function better
I have a hard time imagining a group who are more respected than those who suffer with autism, actually.
Jaybird, I'm sorry, but you simply can't force me to be saying something I'm not saying.
"
No one in the autistic-led advocacy movement argues that autistic children don’t need help to learn how to function well in society
I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. Click the link, and you'll find people who think that it is society that is wrong, and not the children.
I’ve no doubt that the eugenics you’re proposing will have any less of a human cost than previous versions.
Ah, yes, eugenics. As I've explicitly denied that people should be forced into any kind of treatment, or any kind of treatment for their children, that's "eugenics".
On “From Intolerance to Tolerance to Acceptance”
I think the greatest impediment to this dialogue is that we so often think of autism as being a lesser type like Aspergers, or just shyness, or just social discomfort, etc-- not, say, the child who breaks his own arms, or the one left entirely nonverbal, or the one whose behavioral disability is so great he is literally incapable of interacting in society. If we're going to have an honest conversation, we can't keep imagining autism to produce nothing but beautiful dreamers. That's a big part of what I'm reacting against; the public conversation on autism has become dominated by a entirely romanticized vision of the disorder, which is profoundly different from the way most families afflicted by autism experience it. Many people with autism are not budding Einsteins having their creativity crushed by the Man; many are deeply, deeply impaired people who are being prevented from living the kind of lives they would like to be able to.
So the first step is to stop thinking that Aspergers is the correct lens to view this condition. More importantly, I think people need to stop acting as though autism is a set of personality traits, or that personality traits flow from the disorder, and recognize that what makes autism a disorder are the aspects of it that damage human lives. And I think that a tremendous disservice has been done to many people struggling with a host of mental health issues because so many people confuse mental disorders with personality traits that tend to come with them. How many violently depressed people have been chased away from using medication that could materially improve their lives, because they've been sold on the story that they'll turn into some emotionless zombie by anti-depressants? And how many of them have devolved deeper into self-destruction, addiction or suicide?
Those disinclined to view autism are going to elide the disorder with the aspects of personality in autistic people that they enjoy, for the purpose of leveraging their opinion. "See, this autistic person has (positive personality trait X), why would you want to remove that?" But I don't. I just don't think that autism causes dreaminess or curiosity or anything of that nature. Surely, you can be dreamy or shy or unfocused and not have ADHD, or autism, and I believe it is a symptom of an over-medicalized culture that so many people believe that having personality traits similar to a mental disorder is proof positive that one has the disorder. No, I don't want to use medication to remove artiness or dreaminess or introspection or interiority. I do want our society to privilege a view of autism that recognizes that it is on balance much better to treat people who have their lives deeply damaged by a debilitating disorder, people who can barely or cannot communicate, people who hurt themselves or others, people who can't live with the full expression of human interaction that they otherwise would be able to. Keep the aspects of personality that you like, but don't pretend that those aspects are somehow incontrovertibly linked to a historically quite rare developmental disorder.
By the way, since some commenters insist on strawmanning me, as I have said explicitly, I am not arguing for forcible treatment or any such thing. I am arguing for a society that has the courage to not confront all differences as if they were all of equal moral or practical content. (Which they tend not to apply to schizophrenia, or pedophilia, or a disposition towards misogyny....)
On “autism is a disorder”
This is comedy, at this point, Jaybird.
"
I'm saying that the analogy to homosexuality is false, and more, it's just a pathetic gotcha. I don't think that there is any meaningful congruity between the two, and I reject the notion that an opinion about one leads to any opinion about the other. But people can't seem to grasp that.
"
Would this sentence have made sense in 1950 regarding homosexuality?
Again, that is precisely the categorical vision of difference that I am rejecting. I know, I know-- it's very cute. It's framed in exactly the way I'm arguing against.
"
On the other hand, a lot of us who have Aspergers or High Functioning Autism, don’t feel or desire to be “normal.” What you fail to understand is that many of us have tried to fit in and tried hard to pretend. At some point, you get tired of pretending.
I'm not asking you to fit in, or to try to pretend. Wouldn't do that.
I guess my whole point is that you need to really understand the wide range of opinions concerning autism, especially among those of us who are adults with autism, instead of lumping us all into one basket and deciding what is best for us.
I am not deciding what is best for you, nor am I insisting that you undertake any particular kind of treatment. I am advocating that as a society we respect medical science and our conception of what it means for a condition to be a disorder and continue to confront autism as a negative condition that we should work to overcome.