Disabled people and their value to society...

[preacha]

I still maintain it isn't worthy of an argument, or perhaps more accurately it's not worth arguing about. Reason being, if we're ever at a stage where we *have* to prioritise existence based on productivity, it's already too late, and the world is fucked.

the world IS fucked

 

[mobj]

^^^

Its fucked to the point we have to start seriously debating whether we need to off a few cripples to make room for the rest of us? I think you've just proved my point.

 

[MoeBro]

Its fucked beyond that point, but a bit of healthy discussion isn't going to cause any harm to anyone, nor damage the world any further than it is already

 

[Beatlebot]

Sure, I think we should get rid of all non-productive people. Kill em off before they take us down with them.
Only one problem, who is going to decide who is productive and who isn't?
Exactly where would we draw the line?

Let's start the progression shall we? George here is in a coma, he is also brain dead and is never going to wake up, he needs machines to live so if we just shut off those machines we'll save us some resources, NEXT

Mavis acquired severe brain damage during her birth. She is also spastic and requires constant care. Her mother loves her but Mavis is a drain on resources so we'll just hold this pillow over her head for a while, NEXT

Susan is a mother of two adult children. Two years ago Susan was diagnosed with MS. Her condition has debilitated since then and Susan can no longer walk or speak clearly. As a result Susan had to give up her volunteer work and can no longer babysit her grandchildren. she is no longer productive so she has to go, NEXT

Bluelighters are addicted to drugs and can't seem to get through life without them. Bluelighters break the law constantly, suffer from depression and only have sporadic employment. We have come to doubt that Bluelighters wiil ever pull themselves out of it and we do not feel that they are a productive members of society. Round up all Bluelighters and give them a "shower".

So, where do you draw the line? And who gets to decide?

 

[shal]

Disabled people who are mentally retarded, IE: People from the house with no steps and Stewart house have large factorys where they develop many products we use today and most likely dont even release they made them.

I think its good. It gives them something in there life and something in ours. Everyone, no matter who they are, or what they are, have purpose and everyone in existence should be treated equally.

shals :D

 

[mr_p]

^ nice one shal

my cousin is mentally retarded ...i love him, he's not really going to be PRODCUTIVE ... for THIS society ..but he still has his place in the universe ... as we all do

society's not prodcutive for society!

i wonder how we'll break the loop, ponder ponder ponder

 

[GillyWin]

doctors have always ended the lives of new born babies who are born into extreme suffering. it just isn't official or spoken about all that much and is usually carried out via subtle abuse of pain killers.

I think raising a disabled child would be the hardest thing imaginable. You would have so much love to give that would not necessarily be returned. It could impact on your relationship with your partner so much.

I didn't even care about this thread untill i looked at what was written in here. And i have to say a few people have surprised me.

Learn a little about natural selection. These disabled people are living for a reason. Not because they beat the odds. But they may possibly be influencing lives around them.

preacha 'dwindling resources' is not something you will have to worry about.

I dont know anyone who is disabled. I dont work with the disabled, or even care for animals .. but this thread shocks me.

Directly we may learn nothing from people with disabilities, but indirectly we can learn more than any educational facility can provide.

 

[keystroke]

One of my best mates brothers has some condition, in where he thinks his life is all make-believe and his parents adopted him.

he tries to beat his younger brothers up constantly because he thinks they are tricking him into believing they are really his family, and always abuses his mum, so I have some pretty much first-hand knowledge on what it's like dealing with someone with a disability.

even though my friends brother can walk, talk and act normal - it is the family that shows more love than I've ever seen in my life and it is the family who will never get that love returned to them.

 

[GillyWin]

And they .. have learned to appreciate the love they receive?

Making his impact valuable?

 

[keystroke]

aslong as he is happy, it makes them very happy....


so they try their best to make him happy all the time, whilst also making themselves happy.

 

[preacha]

preacha 'dwindling resources' is not something you will have to worry about. [/B]

i take it you didnt read my first post on this subject, only read my second right? thought so.

 

[MazDan]

I think raising a disabled child would be the hardest thing imaginable. You would have so much love to give that would not necessarily be returned. It could impact on your relationship with your partner so much.

I didn't even care about this thread untill i looked at what was written in here. And i have to say a few people have surprised me.

Learn a little about natural selection. These disabled people are living for a reason. Not because they beat the odds. But they may possibly be influencing lives around them.

preacha 'dwindling resources' is not something you will have to worry about.

I dont know anyone who is disabled. I dont work with the disabled, or even care for animals .. but this thread shocks me.

Directly we may learn nothing from people with disabilities, but indirectly we can learn more than any educational facility can provide.

Gilly...........Im not sure what your referring to..........I have been following this thread and also contributed and I havent seen anything poisted that is really outside of simple discussion.

I no, I for one would have jumped on anyone who said anything bad.........I think its a healthy thread.

I dont think its good to lock certain topics away or not discuss them cos they are maybe a little to hard.

Oh and one last thing............I am certyain that everyone who has come into contact with anyone with a dissability...........be it severe or not...........has learnt something..........whether they realise it or not.

 

[eze451]

while the disabled, like our senior citizens might not add much to society ECONOMICALLY, i dont think that should be an overriding criteria of how worthwile they are to society...... it reflects poorly on a society if it cant take care of its weak and aged...... its often said the true worth of a person is determined by how they treat people when they have nothing to gain from it, i think the same could be applied to broader society

 

[silvia saint]

Originally posted by GillyWin
I didn't even care about this thread untill i looked at what was written in here. And i have to say a few people have surprised me.

i haven't said anything that suggests or supports an idea that disabled people should be exterminated. i was just adding some facts when i previously posted the following...

oh by the way, doctors have always ended the lives of new born babies who are born into extreme suffering. it just isn't official or spoken about all that much and is usually carried out via subtle abuse of pain killers. it currently is at a doctors / parents discretion, though you won't find such a process being applied to disorders where the child's quality of life is poor, usually it is done only for those born with untreatable conditions that see the child in excruciating pain 24/7.

my last post i thought expressed my opinion quite clearly...

anyone who thinks that the life of someone should be ended for any other reason than to put a stop to such a person's suffering should go don a swastika and fuck off while they're doing it.

and while some may read more into that statement, i believe that only those afflicted with life threatening and incurable diseases should be able to make such a decision.

i just thought i'd clarify, because i don't wish to spend the next few pages defending myself for things i haven't said, much like what i had to do in another recent thread on another serious topic.

without getting into the details too much, i have experience with a disabled person firsthand. a family member of mine suffers from cerebral palsy. this has affected me very negatively throughout certain periods of my life, and in many ways it has shaped the person i have become today in both a good and bad way. it was hard for me to accept them in my early teenage years, which is understandable. as i grew older i accepted the fact that it was never this persons fault to be afflicted in such a way, any negative effect that they had on me was purely unintentional and thus i have done my best to give them the love that they deserve. it has been a very draining experience on my family, specifically my parents, but at the same time a very rewarding one. the majority of parents with a disabled child only see a child, they can love them no less.

forget what such people owe society, it is what society owes them. we owe them the very best life that they can live, we owe more support for those that care for people with disabilities, we owe more funding to continue medical research to prevent such future afflictions.

 

[ayjay]

The question at the root of this discussion is "how do we measure the value of a human life?" I think the federal department of health and aging puts it at 50K/year.... According to Forrest Gump, disabled people have value if they can come up with some witty homilies and perform amazing and astounding feats (god I hate that fukkin forest gump!!)

I think that the question of value leads to the deeper question; "What is a well spent life?", which as a society we try to answer with tribal ritual ("Get a job, hippy!"), not reason. Maybe we should have a serious go at answering that one...

 

[drinky_mcbeer]

i think that if you take all morality and emotion out of the situation, basicly to look at ppl as robots, then disabled ppl r ones that are out of order and i would have to agree with ur friend whole heartedly, as these ppl r not contributing and are a drain on society. logically (from a perspective without morals or emotion) what ur friend says makes perfect sense but its obvious thats its a much more complicated situation than that and could never happen.

 

[GillyWin]

preacha apologies to you i didn't read your first post, and silviasaint i was more re-iterating what you said.

Major over-reaction by me.

Sorry for flaming y'all

(As much as i am now faulting my response, i wont delete it)

 

[kryalkastleE]

well my mum has been working as a special school teacher for over 20 years and i have volunteered and worked there many times and gotten to know many of these people quite well. and i think that what they get taught in this school is how to be socially accepted and do things "normally" even though the smallest tasks can be a struggle.

they are always happy to work and try their hardest at something, and they actually grow as people from what they do, even if its some small job like cleaning or selling the big issue. i know one girl who works for a big hotel company and she folds clothes in the laundry 3 days a week. she works hard and she loves what she does, and i think we need more people like this. if this girl can get a job that has an intelluctual disablility, why are there so many normal people lining up at centrelink everyday claiming they cant find work?!!

the intelluctually disabled arent the ones who are the drain on society....believe me.

and as for raising a child with a disability, i think it would be one of the hardest things you ever would have to do. but from all the parents i have spoken to over the years that do have a disabled child, would never ever trade them for anything because they love them so much, disabled or not....and watching these kids grow up and do small things (such as perform in a concert - which would seem easy for a normal child but is a very hard task for a disabled one) is so rewarding, because they are just like anyone else, trying to survive in a very fucked up world, except they have the extra weight on their shoulders of being disabled.

and anyone that thinks differently about this matter needs to go and volunteer at a special school for a week, and you would think differently i gurantee it.

 

[Trancey]

I honestly cannot believe some of the things that I'm reading in this thread. Most of all it is incredibly disappointing not just here but that anyone would make a comment like that to anyone else. Friends or not.

My younger brother is mentally disabled. I would never EVER think that someone else would have the choice of whether or not he was productive enough to be able to continue his life on this earth.

My little brother, PJ, is turning 20 in a matter of days, he has the mental capacity of MAYBE a 13 yr old, if that. And even through the hardest times of dealing with his handicap I thank whatever higher power is up there that he has survived thus far.

My parents did not have any clue in what to do with him growing up.
His teachers didn't know what to do with him, and all they ever tried to do was get him out of their class because all of the other kids beat up on him, made fun of him. He even was subjected to the embarrassment of a girl beating him up and he took it because if anything he knows respect and to not hit a female under any circumstance. No one could understand his point of view.

My father was in complete denial and at times called him a retard and refused to believe that something like my little brother could ever come from him. And when my parents split up, refused to take him under any circumstance. He refused to try and get him help in any way, and even refused medical treatment, even if it was necessary to PJ. My mother, myself and my three older brothers were all that there was for PJ.

My mother had 3 nervous breakdowns within 10 years. She'd get so frustrated with no one being willing to help her or PJ. She tried to get him into home schooling, but that drove her to her 3rd breakdown.

I have been taking care of PJ since I was 14. I was the mom of the house since my father refused to do anything. I cooked, cleaned, helped PJ in any way I could. I became everything to him. As far as I was concerned it was the survival of the fittest, and I wasn't about to let him slip under the rug of the system. It was just the 2 of us.

I have watched PJ progress, he is hands down the hardest working person I've ever met, his mind isn't capable of comprehending everything, but he has more ethics and morals than 95% of the people I know.

As far as I'm concerned, even with our hardest times, PJ has taught me more than I could ever learn on my own. And whether or not you people can recognize it, handicapped and disabled people contribute a lot more to society than you think.

Since then, I have volunteered in numerous places trying my best to help the less fortunate. Simply because they deserve as human beings to live like normal people as best as possible. Most of them, are wonderful people. With so much to give. And from what it sounds like, is that most of you haven't taken the time out to look at what a day in the life of one of them must be like. Why not go and take time out of your own way to help someone else.

Love and support aren't the only things that the less fortunate contribute, heavier things, like being humble, and grateful that you are more fortunate than they were. It was not their fault they were born like they were. Why choose to pick them out and punish them by DEATH?

People who are born with disabilities and live to be as old or older than my own flesh and blood, have over come a lot. And that in itself should be inspiration. Just another thing that they do contribute.

And how dare people be so pompous in thinking that we can give someone the "privelidge" of picking and choosing who dies and who is allowed to live and breathe and see another day.

Whether or not mentally, or physically disabled, people have a right to live.

And that's what it comes down to.

How about we look at people who have 20 children and are living off of the government (here anyway) and say, hey, I know you're a grown person and all, but we've decided that we're going to kill you. You're taking up to many resources. When it's your time, you'll die. Otherwise, it's no one else's decision besides their own.

Call me naive, but I never knew there was such a predjudice this strong against disabilities in the world. And we are only the slightest percentage.
You look at them in normal everyday places and stare, because they're different. I look at them and see inspiration, that they are strong enough, no matter what the disability, to go on another day. I'm so upset I'm rambling. That's my .02

 

[keystroke]

^ that's probably the best thing that has came out of this thread tranceA, it's definately life-changing having someone so close to you have a disability. But you've done something that 99% of the people in the world can't.