I never commented, but I do read your blog occasionally. I just want to let you know that I admire the clarity and logical soundness of your arguments. It’s evident that you put a tremendous effort into them, and into trying to actually convince people, rather than merely persuading them. I find that refreshing and inspiring.
(Oh, and I wish I had that kind of patience that you exhibit in explaining your reasoning over and over, and questioning opposing viewpoints in such a polite manner time and again!)

However, the bullying attitude of Autism Speaks is the main issue.

Zach has the legal right to sell his T shirts. That is unaltered by the actions of autism Speaks. He does not have the right to compel Zazzle to market them for him.

And it is very much easier for a person who does not like autism at all, to get their opinion out there, because it’s the dominant viewpoint.

While people involved in views that can be categorized as “neurodiversity” have gotten a bit of media coverage lately, it’s still not even close to being the dominant viewpoint out there. (Even though it is the case that some people who feel threatened by it can act like we’ve taken over the media just by having a few stories on us out there.)

There is a fundamental difference beween people moderating comments on their own blog or on an Internet message board, or owners of newspapers or broadcasters not allowing comments in their newspapers or on their television or radio stations, in societies where a multiplicity of views are able to be expressed freely; and societies in which a particular point of view is not allowed to be expressed, or has very limited outlet for expression. Such as opposition to the Communist party in the former Soviet Union, and the great difficulty anyone advocating Communism would have had in getting their opinions published in the United States in the 1950s, and certainly not in the major news media.

If in democratic societies one person, or a small number of people with the same opinions, have a near monopoly of all the news media, and prevent opinions with which they disagree from being published, that would be censorship.

I have been either friends, or friendly, with people who:

1. Believe in curing autism, either sometimes or all of the time.

2. Believe that being gay is morally wrong, or against God’s rules for the world.

3. Don’t believe autism exists at all.

4. Sincerely believe that the psychiatric system does more good than wrong.

5. Really believe in eugenic abortion of people like me, and believe that it’s for the greater good.

6. Believe that some kinds of human beings aren’t really people.

7. Believe in euthanasia (either as a matter of course for everyone, or specifically for certain kinds of people).

8. Have very different theological beliefs from mine, in many directions.

9. Are very different from me on political matters. (Whether more conservative, more liberal, more libertarian, whatever.)

10. Hold viewpoints that are very elitist (sometimes with me having the traits at the top of their hierarchy, sometimes with me having traits at the bottom, sometimes in between).

11. Support organizations like CAN/Autism Speaks.

12. Go to DAN! doctors and/or believe in things like chelation, special diets, etc., as treatments for autism (stuff I consider mostly quackery).

And knowing people with that wide variety of beliefs has only made things more interesting, not less. It also makes it clear that there are so many viewpoints out there that I’m probably wrong about a lot, and right about a lot, and may never figure out which is which. It encourages a fairly healthy questioning of what I believe in personally, whether I change my mind in the end or not.

Some of the things I listed are highly important to me, some of the views I listed are very offensive to me, some of the things I listed are more important to the other person than to me.

And these friendships don’t allow certain kinds of stagnation or rigidity in my thinking. They allow me to learn and grow and change my mind.

And if I restricted my friends only to those who had my belief system, then I would lose not only all those things, but companionship with a lot of people who are nice, funny, interesting, and all kinds of other things.

You’ve seemed to imply that if my friend did something really offensive, I should get away from them, not talk to them, not work with them, etc.

If a friend really offended me, I’d tell them, but it’d take something more than personal offense to break off a friendship entirely.

In fact, it’d take so much that even really causing me harm isn’t always enough to do it. It depends on the degree of harm, the attitude of the person doing it, the likelihood harm would continue, and a whole lot of other factors. I do have limits — I’m not a doormat and I don’t simply allow myself to be abused — but they’re not where people might imagine they’d be.

And I think that’s a good thing.

Which is why I hope it’s true for you as well.

By the way, I don’t even agree with all of my own writing on autistics.org. The reason I’ve left it published is because I’ve thought it still might be useful to someone, even if I thought differently about things now.

So it would be good not to make predictions based on what you think a person would do in a certain situation where something a friend did offended them. (Mind you, that particular thing didn’t offend me, but I think I understand the intent behind it more than you do.)

And if you’re not able to be friends with people like me, you might want to give it a try. You might find that we’re just as human as you, and Portia, and other people who want autism cured — just as flawed and just as good. You might find that our intentions and motivations run the same range of good to bad as any other group of people. You might find that we grow and change over time like anyone else. You mind find that we’re not the hateful NT-bashing bigots you think we are.

As I said in responses to my last post — it’s really important not to let personal grudges get in the way during things like this. I’d also add that it’s a lot more comfortable not to run around with those grudges grumbling in your head all the time — and that you’re more effective at whatever you’re trying to do, without your judgment being as clouded.

And please understand, I’m not saying all this from the point of view of someone on the outside of these experiences. Dealing with these internal prejudices is something that’s never over for anyone, and I’m not above making all the mistakes I’ve described and more. Lashing out personally at people rather than discussing issues is something I’m fairly familiar with.

Doing all this doesn’t mean agreeing with everyone, or agreeing with the people you currently disagree with. But I really think if you got to know us without judging us as harshly as you sometimes do, you’d find we’re not the hateful people you think we are. And you’d view our viewpoints and motivations differently, even if you never agreed with the viewpoints themselves.

That’s why she doesn’t want to see autistic people aborted on the basis of a genetic test developed by an organization that may or may not be well-meaning (probably a combination of well-meaning and a lot of other things, since organizations never have just one viewpoint within them).

Can you at least see the perspective for a moment, of someone who knows the history of prenatal genetic testing, and then finds out that people are seeking to find the genes to prevent autism. Finding the genes to prevent something, so far, means finding the genes and then either failing to implant embryos with those genes, or aborting people with those genes. It’s not a hard leap of logic to make to see that these things are intertwined.

Can you possibly understand that just because someone does something you think is very wrong, doesn’t mean they’re full of hate, the way you continually portray her and apparently anyone who associates with her? If you’re asking me to understand the intentions behind genetic research, then you have understand the intentions behind a cartoon that you apparently find unspeakably vile.

I agree that it’s speaking about an unspeakably vile potential reality, but it’s not the cartoonist who dreamed up that reality. That’s like accusing a political cartoonist of hate for drawing something showing the devastation of a potential war that a politician is calling for.

Yes, I happen to agree with the person who made it, that that is the most likely form of autism prevention, and there are many precedents for that. But even if I hated what she drew, I (a) wouldn’t take it off the site, and (b) wouldn’t stop being her friend because of all those other good qualities she has.

But I want you to at least try to understand how love could motivate someone to draw something like that, to expose an atrocity waiting to happen.

The person who drew that was not advocating hate, and she wasn’t advocating the scenario in the picture. She was saying, “I think this is where we’re headed, and I don’t like it.” She wasn’t advocating hate towards the people who want genetic research, that’s not how she operates. She was trying to explain what disability-based hatred would do with that research.

If you view only people’s intentions as important, then what she did is fine, and what Portia Iverson does is fine too, because both of them have good intentions.

If you view the consequences of Laura’s love and good intentions as bad, then you have to see that it was about the consequences of Portia Iverson’s organization’s good intentions could be bad too, bad enough to write a cartoon about.

Let’s see… also, there’s two other people at autistics.org right now. Have you ever gone and bugged Phil Schwarz or Joel Smith about that cartoon or do you have particular animosity towards me about it? Can you possibly do an exercise where you think of me without thinking and talking incessantly about one cartoon that you’ve managed to grossly misinterpret?

Do you realize that all four of us write things the others disagree with, and print things on autistics.org that none of us fully agree with?

Additionally, comment moderation is just not censorship, it’s been explained to you several times why it’s not censorship, in very clear ways.

The rest of what you’re saying basically boils down to “might makes right” — an organization’s views are meaningless unless it has a certain degree of political power. I don’t agree with the premise of that.

There may be an organization run by five people living in poverty with no Internet access who have better views on autism than you, me, Autism Speaks, and whoever else. They might never be able to hire a lawyer or disseminate their views. But their views might be more right than anyone’s.

Views stand and fall on their own merit, but just because they’re right doesn’t mean the people who have them are organized enough in a whole lot of ways, to solve every problem related to them yet.

There’s so much all-or-nothing, and ad hominem, in what you have written, that at this point I’m not going to respond any further. But think about what I said — really think about it, don’t just scoff and say “It’s hate because I say it’s hate.”

We were just talking on a board about how when you don’t like someone, your views of their faults are magnified (to the point of seeing fault where there is none), and if you like someone, you’re willing to overlook a lot. I think that’s what’s happening to you right now, which is why I’m saying, take a step back and think, rather than accusing everyone right and left of all kinds of things that aren’t going on.

I mean… look at what it’s doing to you. You’ve recently put a “…but…” sort of qualifier on a post you wrote about people who want me murdered, because you didn’t like a cartoon I didn’t even write. For someone to put even the slightest “…but…” qualifier on premeditated murder in any circumstance is pretty appalling. To put that “…but…” in because of something as small as a political cartoon shows a perspective that has to be pretty warped by something. Please take a step back and look at what you’re doing and why you’re really doing it.

However, there is a big load of qualifiers in what I wrote, just above.

I do fear that there is a large number of people in this country disqualified for polite discourse by those qualifiers, and what’s worse, they vote.

I use that as one of my excuses for drinking too much alcohol. Snerk.

“I want to be _numb_ when they come for me, _numb_, I tell you!” – a quotation of myself

In the US, to prove libel you have to show there has been “reckless disregard for the truth.” In the situations you describe, Jon, people are obviously speculating about plausible scenarios at some future time. It’s not libel by a long shot.