Michigan mayor allegedly advocates killing the disabled

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The mentally disabled should not be killed. They are humans. At the same time, they are absolutely a burden to society and anyone who says they are a blessing is clearly just trying to make themselves feel better about the horrible situation they are in. To minimize their burden to society, the government should run care homes where these people can be taken care of. If people want to take care of their own mentally retarded relatives by themselves, they should of course be allowed but if there are quality care homes, very few will choose that option. Also, as soon as a mental disability is diagnosed, a fetus should be aborted. This should not be mandated by law, just encouraged by society. People whose families have a history of mental retardation should also be discouraged from having children, again, not by the law, just by society. Eugenics is fine as long as it's not racial.

Would you really want to live in a world where you went through life knowing that if you didn't meet some more or less arbitrary standard of mental health nobody would have wanted you to be born?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Roughly what the Nazis around here said before they came to power (and then did exterminate them).

I cry for America ...

Obviously our education system has failed to sufficiently educate the American populace, especially on the subjects of science, history, and civics. The number of people coming forward to voice their support for eugenics, racial separatism and hierarchy, and so on have obviously not learned anything from history. I just hope we aren't doomed to repeat it...

My theory is that it's happening when it is at least in part because the Omaha Beach/Band of Brothers cohort has mostly died off (RIP, FFs) and the only people of whom some are left to tell people what it was like when the fash rose the first time are people who are in much less exalted positions in the public imagination. I recently saw somebody on some history subreddit (I don't post on Reddit but I read it on occasion) talking about how his younger cousin was getting into Panzer Leader-style Wehrmacht apologism and how it was a shame their grandfather wasn't still alive because 'he'd kick his ass until he learned to love the US Army'. Perhaps something similar is going on with regard to public memory of other aspects of the period too.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The mentally disabled should not be killed. They are humans. At the same time, they are absolutely a burden to society and anyone who says they are a blessing is clearly just trying to make themselves feel better about the horrible situation they are in. To minimize their burden to society, the government should run care homes where these people can be taken care of. If people want to take care of their own mentally retarded relatives by themselves, they should of course be allowed but if there are quality care homes, very few will choose that option. Also, as soon as a mental disability is diagnosed, a fetus should be aborted. This should not be mandated by law, just encouraged by society. People whose families have a history of mental retardation should also be discouraged from having children, again, not by the law, just by society. Eugenics is fine as long as it's not racial.

Would you really want to live in a world where you went through life knowing that if you didn't meet some more or less arbitrary standard of mental health nobody would have wanted you to be born?

Being depressed is not the same as being mentally retarded. For one, severity. For another thing, being depressed can be treated by pills. Being mentally retarded cannot.

I never said the potentially depressed should be aborted. That's something Sorenroy made up in a fit of hysteria.

Feel free to answer my question if you like.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The mentally disabled should not be killed. They are humans. At the same time, they are absolutely a burden to society and anyone who says they are a blessing is clearly just trying to make themselves feel better about the horrible situation they are in. To minimize their burden to society, the government should run care homes where these people can be taken care of. If people want to take care of their own mentally retarded relatives by themselves, they should of course be allowed but if there are quality care homes, very few will choose that option. Also, as soon as a mental disability is diagnosed, a fetus should be aborted. This should not be mandated by law, just encouraged by society. People whose families have a history of mental retardation should also be discouraged from having children, again, not by the law, just by society. Eugenics is fine as long as it's not racial.

Would you really want to live in a world where you went through life knowing that if you didn't meet some more or less arbitrary standard of mental health nobody would have wanted you to be born?

Being depressed is not the same as being mentally retarded. For one, severity. For another thing, being depressed can be treated by pills. Being mentally retarded cannot.

I never said the potentially depressed should be aborted. That's something Sorenroy made up in a fit of hysteria.

Feel free to answer my question if you like.

I don't advocate abortion for easily treatable personality issues. I advocate abortion for severe intellectual disabilities. It's a very common position on the left. I suspect most of you attacking me also agree with it. That's why you haven't attacked my actual position and have instead attacked a strawman about aborting the depressed.

I haven't used that strawman because it's a repulsive position either way, 'very common on the left' or not. (What's even more alarming, and what certainly isn't common on the left as far as I know, is the notion that anybody who experiences an intellectually impaired loved one as a blessing is lying to herself--seriously, what the Christ?) Feel free to answer my question if you like.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The answers is I wouldn't like it. Which is why I don't advocate for it.

It's exactly what you're advocating for.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

At this point,  we have to be resigned to the fact that 'it is happening here and now". It would be ignorant to think otherwise.

Personally, no one should be forced to carry a damaged fetus to term but if a fetus is discovered like that, but the parents should be automatically given the choice of prenatal disability benefits. I wouldn't know what I would do if I knew if I was going to have a disabled child but it wouldn't be my choice to make. It should also be illegal to have people castrated or prevented to grow because they are disabled. My grandparents had my Down Syndrome Aunt castrated. They were Conservative Catholics.

Clearly not Catholic enough, if they did that. Yeesh.

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I understand the rationale behind looking at it like this and I understand that it's well-intentioned but it's not the way I or most of the other disabled people I know would want to be looked at.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

At this point,  we have to be resigned to the fact that 'it is happening here and now". It would be ignorant to think otherwise.

Personally, no one should be forced to carry a damaged fetus to term but if a fetus is discovered like that, but the parents should be automatically given the choice of prenatal disability benefits. I wouldn't know what I would do if I knew if I was going to have a disabled child but it wouldn't be my choice to make. It should also be illegal to have people castrated or prevented to grow because they are disabled. My grandparents had my Down Syndrome Aunt castrated. They were Conservative Catholics.

Clearly not Catholic enough, if they did that. Yeesh.

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I understand the rationale behind looking at it like this and I understand that it's well-intentioned but it's not the way I or most of the other disabled people I know would want to be looked at.

Could it be both? Knowing there will be empowerment and care but knowing that there is the possibility of improved health?

Yes, absolutely! Improved health+acceptance of the parts of people's experiences that are meaningful to them is the best of both worlds. (If pressed I might say something similar about obesity, although 1. I do think the extremes of the 'fat acceptance' movement are silly and potentially dangerous and 2. I don't have a healthy enough relationship with my own eating habits to think about that in too much detail anyway.)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My main concern with the arguments he's presenting is that they do represent the way a lot of people think about these issues. But in a way he's doing us a service because he's presenting them in such a brazen, psychopathic way that he's really laying bare the ugliness lurking within what we're trained to see as fairly normal, mainstream, reasonable attitudes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My main concern with the arguments he's presenting is that they do represent the way a lot of people think about these issues. But in a way he's doing us a service because he's presenting them in such a brazen, psychopathic way that he's really laying bare the ugliness lurking within what we're trained to see as fairly normal, mainstream, reasonable attitudes.

Are you pro-life in general? Please answer the question.

Yes, I am. I thought that was common forum knowledge; sorry.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

My main concern with the arguments he's presenting is that they do represent the way a lot of people think about these issues. But in a way he's doing us a service because he's presenting them in such a brazen, psychopathic way that he's really laying bare the ugliness lurking within what we're trained to see as fairly normal, mainstream, reasonable attitudes.

Are you pro-life in general? Please answer the question.

Yes, I am. I thought that was common forum knowledge; sorry.

I thought so but I wasn't sure.

Anyway, that make sense. Even though you hate me and don't care about my opinion, I respect your view. It makes sense from a pro-life stand point.

Anyone who is pro-choice arguing against me seems ridiculous though.

'Hate' is a bit strong. I certainly don't like you but I don't wish you any harm.

I'd point out that it's not only the abortion part of your initial post that people have good reason to take exception to, and I'm not quite sure why that's what this argument is focusing on.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well the other thing people took exception with was me calling the mentally retarded a burden. Even half the people attacking me in this thread have conceded that point. It's pretty damn hard to argue against.

It's the manner in which you called them a burden that rankles--in particular your assertion that anybody who experiences an intellectually impaired loved one as a blessing is lying to herself. There are plenty of people and things in this world that are burdens but sometimes it's our responsibility and duty to shoulder one another's burdens out of love. Caring for those who can't care for themselves is a privilege and an honor. It's salutary in a way that one doesn't get by shunting poor mad Rosemary off to the loony bin and condescending to awkward, woebegone visits once in a blue moon the way you're advocating. The way Reagan put deinstitutionalization into practice was completely verkakte and made matters worse but it wasn't a bad idea. I could easily cast this in religious language but surely one needn't be religious to see this?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the best options for mentally disabled people are:

1.  To live independent lives with support people (family, friends, social workers) nearby to facilitate any day-to-day things they might need help with.

If that isn't feasible,

2.  To live at home with mom and dad with help from the government.  Employment and social functions are important.

If that isn't feasible,

3.  To live in a group home with no more than about a dozen people, staffed full time by 1 or 2 aides who help prepare meals and make sure the place is safe.

If that isn't feasible,

4.  To live in a psychiatric home with a full time professional staff with an emphasis on making things as comfortable, entertaining, and fulfilling as possible.

In all cases, if they can work, even in coordinated jobs specifically designed for them,  that is a good goal.  

The question of romance and reproduction is decided on a case-by-case basis with input from them, their families, and their doctors.

Good man.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I did volunteer work with high and mid-level functioning mentally disabled people in my late teens and early twenties.  To a person, they were wonderful.  Much more pleasant to be around than my current colleagues, the latter of whom would adamantly, but unconvincingly, insist that they are healthy.

Yeah, that's the other thing. Famous Mortimer's apparent belief that the life of a mentally disabled person is so miserable and devoid of "quality" as to not be worth living clearly doesn't come from experience with these people and more than likely just stems from false equivalency to Alzheimer's or something of that sort (a sort which still doesn't justify writing people's lives off as horrible and fundamentally unimportant). The so-called "retarded", assuming they have loved ones and/or good-hearted professionals caring for them, generally don't suffer in particular beyond the indignities that the Famous Mortimers of the world impose upon them, and oftentimes they're downright happy as clams. It may interest some of the forum to know that the word "cretin" comes from the word "Christian". Shades of Prince Myshkin?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)

It matters a great deal to me as well, I suspect not for entirely dissimilar reasons.

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I hardly think acknowledging and being sincere about the burdensome aspects of being a caregiver and processing the experience as salutary are mutually exclusive, but what do I know, it's not like I've been on both ends of this dynamic at different times in my life or anything.

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Excuse me?

I simply don't think it's morally acceptable to cut a swath through one's own children in order to selectively decide what aspects of one's life they inherit. You can sneer at this (and yes, you are sneering, and have been for months if not years) and imply that it means my attitudes towards people's inner eugenic thought processes are wicked and unfair all you like but all doing so accomplishes is frustrating me and making me hope you never speak to me again.

I don't wish to discuss this or any related subject with you further.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Excuse me?

I simply don't think it's morally acceptable to cut a swath through one's own children in order to selectively decide what aspects of one's life they inherit. You can sneer at this (and yes, you are sneering, and have been for months if not years) and imply that it means my attitudes towards people's inner eugenic thought processes are wicked and unfair all you like but all doing so accomplishes is frustrating me and making me hope you never speak to me again.

I don't wish to discuss this or any related subject with you further.

I'm not sneering. If anything I'm talking about things mitochondrial donation (which is currently in the news here for various legal reasons) I don't think that's 'cutting a swathe' through children (my sister is an embryologist; so it's something I've been focused on) I'm sorry if it's challenging your position, but the fact it's gotten you so wind up probably means you have some conflict on the matter.

Not really. Please don't armchair-psychoanalyze.

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted what you were referring to.

I'll concede, at this point, that words like "privilege" and "honor" do a terrible job of getting across what I was trying to indicate and may constitute an outright romanticization of caregiving that's potentially dangerous to those cared for. Words like "duty" are, yes, better in this context. I reacted badly against the way you framed saying that because I thought it constituted an unacceptable defense of Famous Mortimer's utterly awful position. (I'm conceding this after a discussion on the subject with a friend who's in a situation similar to mine as both disabled and an occasional caregiver to other disabled people, btw.)

There might be more I'd be willing to concede but I'm still pissed at you for the way in which you went about bringing up these concepts.

Why is Afleitch so hateful lately? Marriage on the rocks or something?

This is uncalled-for.

Sorry, but unless you consider creatures such as fish, pigs, cows, etc. sentient and equal to humans, implying that killing something less inteligent then the aformentioned animals is equivilent to killing a living, thinking human is not logically sound.

ETA: and "it'll become a human"  doesn't work so well when you consider that such actions as using contraceptives makes it so that a sentient being that would've existed doesn't.

1. We've been over this before. I don't think intelligence is the important thing here. I think your contention that it is is morally incorrect but I'd be willing to put it to rest if you were.
2. Drawing a moral equivalency between prophylactic contraception and abortion is absurd. A biologically separate entity doesn't exist in the former case. It does in the latter. I'd say the same to a super-hardcore Traditionalist Catholic who was trying to argue that using a condom is murder or whatever.
3. Supercilious incomprehension of the other side's position on abortion used to be mostly a pro-life thing. I'm honestly not sure whether I'm glad that that's not the case any more or not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'll concede, at this point, that words like "privilege" and "honor" do a terrible job of getting across what I was trying to indicate and may constitute an outright romanticization of caregiving that's potentially dangerous to those cared for. Words like "duty" are, yes, better in this context. I reacted badly against the way you framed saying that because I thought it constituted an unacceptable defense of Famous Mortimer's utterly awful position. (I'm conceding this after a discussion on the subject with a friend who's in a situation similar to mine as both disabled and an occasional caregiver to other disabled people, btw.)

It's okay. I had hoped my opening salvo noting that 'the elderly and most children for that matter' are technically a 'burden' by extension of the argument would have let you know exactly what I thought of FM's position. Sometimes you have to call a 'spade a spade' simply to get anywhere in a system that will assume that because you 'do' you 'can' (like 70 year old women left to lift their adult sons into bed despite not having the strength to do so being essentially ignored by authorities because they happen to say it doesn't bother them)

I read your original post in some haste and didn't really register what you meant by that; sorry!

1. I fail to see why it isn't. If we want to argue based on "disturbing implications", defining having rights as being based on "being a distinct entity composed of human cells" has the quite discomforting effect of making any sentient being that isn't of the species homo sapien devoid of all rights. What would your definition be?

Starting a definition of rights there and then expanding it if needed or desired on an ad hoc basis, maybe? Not everything has to be completely, rigidly rigorous. Yes, I'm aware that this is a double-edged sword and could be used to curtail rights on an ad hoc basis as well, but, Christ, at least then we could have honest debates about that when it arises.

One could also construct an argument that non-human animals don't have "rights" in the same sense that humans do but that humans have a duty to treat them humanely. I'd prefer that myself, but I admit that it might require application of specifically religious logic to work.

One could also go full ahimsa, an idea I quite like too.

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[citation needed]

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

But we're not discussing consciousness or development of the cerebral cortex. We're discussing personhood. You and I disagree on the boundaries of personhood, and you're pushing this bare assertion fallacy at me over and over and over again rather than just moving the hell on like I hoped you had weeks and weeks ago. The only reason I'm doing the same is that you refuse to accept that we disagree on this (and will presumably both be trying to sway third parties towards our points of view as a legitimate topic of political and moral debate) and move the hell on.

I don't actually think understanding animal welfare as a duty incumbent on humans requires religious logic to work at all. I said it might to throw you a bone. You, of course, took the whole skeleton, and I regret saying it.

You're not interested in agreeing to disagree. You're not interested in expanding definitions, or living with uncertainty, or allowing for compromises that nobody's really happy with. What on earth are you actually trying to accomplish by slamming your definition of personhood into me over and over again and acting like it's objective fact? Do you actually think you'll convince me?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

But we're not discussing consciousness or development of the cerebral cortex. We're discussing personhood. You and I disagree on the boundaries of personhood, and you're pushing this bare assertion fallacy at me over and over and over again rather than just moving the hell on like I hoped you had weeks and weeks ago. The only reason I'm doing the same is that you refuse to accept that we disagree on this (and will presumably both be trying to sway third parties towards our points of view as a legitimate topic of political and moral debate) and move the hell on.

You're not interested in agreeing to disagree. You're not interested in expanding definitions, or living with uncertainty, or allowing for compromises that nobody's really happy with. What on earth are you actually trying to accomplish by slamming your definition of personhood into me over and over again and acting like it's objective fact? Do you actually think you'll convince me?

I guess I just feel a need to debate those that I feel are wrong. It's probably a waste of time, but I honestly don't care.

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Perhaps religious isn't the right word, but declaring something a duty "just because" leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

PS: I don't act so certain when I'm not sure about something(eg I genuinely don't know whether age of consent laws are neccesary and feel it needs research or something, I'm ambivilent and undecided on gun control, I'm not sure about most things foriegn policy).

That's fair. Sorry for blowing up at you.