Really [1][2] (hat tip to
Liberty Oct '10).
I remember when Bush (Sr.) signed the ADA and I thought it was a
bad idea because it jumped from preventing discrimination along
criteria that shouldn't matter in the long run (principally race)
to a Harrison Bergeron like dystopia[3] of intentionally crippling
people in the name of equality. We have arrived.
Even accepting the presumption for a moment, the reasoning is
ridiculous: the menus are not accessible to the blind. Well, duh,
normal print books are not directly accessible to the blind
either. In some cases spoken versions are available, and
presumably still would be. I know there are scanners for printed
books that can verbalize them, but that feature is already built
in to the Kindle. There are scanners that convert print to pins
(not braille, just raised letters). If they work for a book,
surely they are adequate for a menu (which is used much less often
than actual text reading).
But that's not the real problem, the reality is being blind is a
serious (and of course tragic) handicap. You can't see the
professor write on the white board for instance. Are we to ban
that? Apparently not, previous "discrimination" is acceptable,
it's just technological progress that is to be blocked. People
have lots of disabilities, e.g. ADD, genetically lower IQs, are we
to compensate for all of those by dumbing everything down? That's
the DOJ logic.
Let's help the blind in every way we can, but let's not clobber
progress in the rest of the country while we are at it. Just at a
time when U.S. primary schools are lagging badly internationally
and U.S. universities are losing their grip, the DOJ cripples
universities now (and presumably primary schools later) by making
textbooks more expensive (and therefore fewer of them or smaller
less informative volumes), making information less available (book
is back in room, on library shelf, etc.) and ultimately denying
the 'library in your hand' concept of having all reference
materials available online all of the time. Speaking of which, why
aren't they outlawing all computers and smart phones in the
university? They have menus too.
It doesn't even make long-term sense to help the blind. Forcing
them to live in a less educated and innovative world means fewer
products to assist them, fewer cures for the blindness, less
economic productivity to make for a better life all around.
I take it as a metaphor for the Democrats' economic program as
well. It's not about "fairness", it's certainly not about
efficient production, it's not about a basic standard of living
(raising it for the poor), it's about destroying productivity
everywhere they can find it and reducing the rich to poverty so
that everyone is equal. DOJ's Perez: “Progress that isn’t uniform
across all demographics is discriminatory. Until all can take the
same step into the future, no one must be allowed to inch ahead.”
That should scare you.
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[1]
href="http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2579459/posts">http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2579459/posts
(less reliable, but more details)
[2]
href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10434512-1.html">http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10434512-1.html
(a reliable source)
[3]
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron