Autism is Not a Disease

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 26 Dec 2004 13:00:00 GMT

# I made my mother's Chocolate Mint Pie yesterday for the community Christmas pot-luck dinner. Yum.

# Amy Harmon at The New York Times - How About Not 'Curing' Us, Some Autistics Are Pleading - The Aspie school in New York's Catskill mountains doesn't treat autistic people as diseased. As well they apparently shouldn't. [cafe]

The new program, whose name stands for Autistic Strength, Purpose and Independence in Education - and whose acronym is a short form of Asperger's - is rooted in a view of autism as an alternative form of brain wiring, with its own benefits and drawbacks, rather than a devastating disorder in need of curing.

It is a view supported by an increasingly vocal group of adult autistics, including some who cannot use speech to communicate and have been institutionalized because of their condition. But it is causing consternation among many parents whose greatest hope is to avoid that very future for their children. Many believe that intensive behavioral therapy offers the only rescue from the task of caring for unpredictable, sometimes aggressive children, whose condition can take a toll on the entire family.

...

The effort to cure autism, they say, is not like curing cancer, but like the efforts of a previous age to cure left-handedness. Some worry that in addition to troublesome interventions, the ultimate cure will be a genetic test to prevent autistic children from being born.

# Jim Sinclair at The Autism Information Library - Don't Mourn For Us - the 1993 essay that sparked the autism-is-not-a-disease movement. Wow! [faisal]

Autism isn't something a person has, or a "shell" that a person is trapped inside. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person--and if it were possible, the person you'd have left would not be the same person you started with.

This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.

Therefore, when parents say,

"I wish my child did not have autism,"
what they're really saying is,
"I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead."
Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.

...

What it comes down to is that you expected something that was tremendously important to you, and you looked forward to it with great joy and excitement, and maybe for a while you thought you actually had it--and then, perhaps gradually, perhaps abruptly, you had to recognize that the thing you looked forward to hasn't happened. It isn't going to happen. No matter how many other, normal children you have, nothing will change the fact that this time, the child you waited and hoped and planned and dreamed for didn't arrive.

This is the same thing that parents experience when a child is stillborn, or when they have their baby to hold for a short time, only to have it die in infancy. It isn't about autism, it's about shattered expectations. I suggest that the best place to address these issues is not in organizations devoted to autism, but in parental bereavement counseling and support groups. In those settings parents learn to come to terms with their loss--not to forget about it, but to let it be in the past, where the grief doesn't hit them in the face every waking moment of their lives. They learn to accept that their child is gone, forever, and won't be coming back. Most importantly, they learn not to take out their grief for the lost child on their surviving children. This is of critical importance when one of those surviving children arrived at t time the child being mourned for died.

# L. Neil Smith - On Concealed Carry and the NRA - I encountered this while doing a Google search for something else. I am occasionally tempted to trade in my inalienable rights for a little temporary relief from gummint hassle. This article is a good reminder of why that is a really bad idea.

Those who beg permission from the government to exercise a right they already possess are not free men and women. They're Tories; they're grovelers. They'd beg permission from the government to breathe, if they were told it was required of them. If they were told it was required of them, they'd beg permission from the government, even to grovel.

A license -- government permission -- to carry a concealed weapon is nothing but the latest kind of gun control, the latest kind of groveling. There's no way to euphemize it; there's no way to excuse it. It isn't necessary: nobody needs the government's permission to carry a weapon, concealed or otherwise. And it's illegal under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution for government, at any level, to require it. That's right, it's illegal; and it's a primary goal of the Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus to jail those in government, elected or otherwise, who obstruct the Bill of Rights in any way.

It's also dangerous: it converts a fundamental human right into a privilege which the government may see fit to deny to anyone, for any reason, at any time is wishes. How anyone could be aware of history for the last hundred years -- especially the last fifty -- and not acknowledge this basic truth is beyond understanding.

# Robinson Armament - XCR™ Modular Weapon System - Alex Robinson's new rifle "will begin mass production very shortly". There are links on this page to an image gallery and videos (no muzzle rize at all on this puppy in full auto .223 or 7.62x39).

From Mr. Robinson's December 8 news update:

The retail price of the standard XCR-L 5.56 is $1,249.99 which is similar to the price of an AR15 Flattop with a good rail system added. However, the XCR-L offers so much more - quick-change, free-floating barrel; caliber change; lower recoil; better ergonomics; better reliability; and stronger parts. If you have any questions or comments, we'd like to hear them. We are taking orders now for shipment sometime in January into February.

According to the video page, it will be available in .223, 6.8 Rem, and 7.62x39:

Caliber conversion depicted is the same for all calibers, including 6.8. In other words, one need only substitute the barrel, bolt, and magazine to go from one caliber to another. High capacity 7.62x39mm magazines for the XCR-L with a bolt hold open feature are under development. Rifles capable of fully-automatic fire are only sold to military and law enforcement agencies. Semi-automatic versions of all rifles are available for sale to the public in all states except where prohibited by state law. All NFA Rules Apply.

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair