Does ADA stifle free speech?

[conarb]

Just look at what these bastards are doing again in the US Senate:

A U.S. Senate hearing pertaining to the Republican health-care bill had to take a brief recess Friday afternoon after disability rights advocates began chanting their opposition to the bill.

The protesters, many of whom were in wheelchairs and mobility scooters, were removed by police before the session resumed.

The Senate Finance Committee hearing was called to discuss a measure, proposed by Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, that would undo former president Barack Obama‘s expansion of Medicaid and related subsidies.¹

Any of these activist groups who use the methodology of the Communist Saul Alinsky should be shot on the spot.


¹ https://globalnews.ca/news/3767611/senate-healthcare-hearing-protesters-in-wheelchairs-removed/

 

[tmurray]

That just strikes me as........backwards.

If the hearing impaired were sitting in a lecture/class, there would no closed captioning........why is providing a video different?

But it's the law that your democratically elected leaders have put into place and maintained for decades. Regardless of if you agree of disagree with the ethical implications, it is the law and if the populace wanted it changed, would it not have been changed by now?

 

[mark handler]

if the populace wanted it changed, would it not have been changed by now?

Short answer is yes.
The ADA like many complex laws, is vague and has flaws.
People will oppose any law that impacts them. Whether or not they know it is the right thing to do.
It is no longer WWJD it is what is best for me.

 

[conarb]

But it's the law that your democratically elected leaders have put into place and maintained for decades. Regardless of if you agree of disagree with the ethical implications, it is the law and if the populace wanted it changed, would it not have been changed by now?

As I have repeatedly stated it is an unconstitutional law, to be constitutional there would have to be an amendment to the constitution, the courts have let them stand temporarily as redress to past grievances for blacks, Justice O'Connor gave civil rights law until 2028, that's 10 more years of this unconstitutional crap¹. We are not a Democracy, we are a constitutional Republic and not a Democratic Republic like some "Progressives" would like to think, our founders followed both Plato and Aristotle who rejected Democracy in light of it's failure in Athens, if you are interested you should read Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.

What we are getting here are the followers of Karl Marx and his Communist theory of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

Whether or not they know it is the right thing to do.
It is no longer WWJD it is what is best for me.

What are you a religious nut case? Who is to decide what is right, certainly not a government employee, especially one following religious doctrine.


¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger

 

[tmurray]

As I have repeatedly stated it is an unconstitutional law, to be constitutional there would have to be an amendment to the constitution, the courts have let them stand temporarily as redress to past grievances for blacks, Justice O'Connor gave civil rights law until 2028, that's 10 more years of this unconstitutional crap¹. We are not a Democracy, we are a constitutional Republic and not a Democratic Republic like some "Progressives" would like to think, our founders followed both Plato and Aristotle who rejected Democracy in light of it's failure in Athens, if you are interested you should read Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.

What we are getting here are the followers of Karl Marx and his Communist theory of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

So if the elected officials and courts are unwilling to change the law, the people who are enforcing it are paid to do so, what is the plan to change it? Beating a dead horse on a building inspection forum where most don't even enforce this law?

 

[conarb]

At what point do you guys stop enforcing bad law? Nuremberg stands for the principle that "Just following orders" does not absolve you of criminal activity. The worst thing that ADA has done, beyond the trillions that it has cost, is flooding our schoolrooms with idiots and morons destroying our educational system, just look at my recent post about California test scores dropping, even with tests programed to make everyone equal:

The CAASPP It is a computer adaptive test — meaning as the test progresses, questions become harder or easier depending on the student’s answers. The test also includes “performance tasks” where students apply knowledge to analyze a real-world problem.

But persistently low achievement rates of African-American, Latino, poor, English-learner and disabled students, who together make up a majority of the state’s public-school students, fuel criticism of the educational status quo.¹

Note that the chart that accompanied that article didn't even list disabled/retarded kids, retarded kids can't learn so nobody learns. With the "Computer adaptive" tests theoretically you could sit a 60 IQ moron next to a 160 IQ genius and their scores would come out identical. There are no scores to games, everyone gets a participation trophy,


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/09/27/california-school-test-scores-why-are-they-flatlining/

 

[ADAguy]

You, "Conarb" are a piece of work, "old " work. You live in the past and don't apparently have any faith in the future.
Read "The Art of Loving" by Eric Fromm and maybe you may see the light.

 

[tmurray]

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Strangely enough, this is also the best thing to do with good laws. I think it very strange that billion dollar corporations that have had to pay millions in retrofits to their buildings to comply with this law would not simply fight it to the supreme court level and have it overturned. Perhaps your opinion that it is unconstitutional is not shared by their legal teams.

 

[conarb]

You, "Conarb" are a piece of work, "old " work. You live in the past and don't apparently have any faith in the future.
Read "The Art of Loving" by Eric Fromm and maybe you may see the light.

ADAguy:

You are right, I am old, old enough to remember the tyranny of Roosevelt and his war, but also remember freedom in this country, I read an interesting article yesterday, it might give you an idea of what lots of America thinks about this return to tyranny.

Libertarians and others who seek to be left alone to run their own lives habitually ask themselves the above question regarding their government.

So, what’s the answer? Are they out to get you? Well, unfortunately, the answer isn’t a simple “yes” or “no.” In fact, it’s “yes” and “no.”

The secret to understanding a government’s intentions is that there’s no unified overall objective, sentiment, or approach to dealing with the private sector. Quite the opposite. With any government, it couldn’t be more fragmented or dysfunctional.

At the very lowest level of any government is the civil service, which is, in any country, a catch-all for all those people who are so lacking in ability and imagination that they’d be unlikely to hold down a job in the private sector. Moreover, their level of motivation is likely to be so low that their dysfunction tends to coincide with extreme inefficiency.

To test this out, one only has to visit the local Department of Motor Vehicles, or a similar agency that does little except charge fees and waste time in order to provide you with a permit, which, were it not required, you could happily do without.

Most anyone, in observing the individual behind the counter, would observe the glassy stare and recognize that, even though this person spends each working day behind this counter and may have been doing so for years, he or she takes virtually no interest in your personal concerns and, if you have questions, tends to find them a nuisance and an interruption in the endless drudgery of issuing paperwork.

Well, unfortunately, the answer is simple. It’s because those are the character traits that they lack. I’m sorry to have to say that in my many years of working directly with politicians and heads of governments, virtually all of them were highly evolved civil-servant types. They had more drive, more guile, and larger egos than the lower-level bureaucrats but were just as parasitical and just as lacking in character traits that would make them productive people.

With these individuals, yes, they are out to get you. First, if they recognize that you possess the traits that would make you productive, they will be highly jealous and suspicious of you. Second, they will understand that since you are productive and they are not, they must find a means by which they can use you as a cash cow, to be milked as much as possible and as often as possible.

Their purpose, therefore, is to regulate, control, and tax you in every way possible, and in this they are, quite simply, predators. They may be Tory or Labour, Republican or Democrat, but they are predators nonetheless and, as such, are a genuine threat to both your freedom and your well-being.

Of course, all politicians play the game of party politics, doing all in their power to convince the electorate that they and their party are dramatically different from the opposing party, presenting their own party as “the good guys,” and the opposing party as “the bad guys.”¹

¹ http://www.internationalman.com//articles/are-they-really-out-to-get-me

 

[conarb]

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Strangely enough, this is also the best thing to do with good laws. I think it very strange that billion dollar corporations that have had to pay millions in retrofits to their buildings to comply with this law would not simply fight it to the supreme court level and have it overturned. Perhaps your opinion that it is unconstitutional is not shared by their legal teams.

T Murray:

Most attorneys think this will come to a head when Justice O'Connor's 25 years ends in 10 years, on the other hand it's tied to all civil rights legislation and the situation with black and feminist rights overshadows disability, ongoing riots will certainly have an effect, what everyone is waiting for are one or two more changes in the supreme court. As I've said there is a way to legalize it, and that's a constitutional amendment.

 

[ADAguy]

Wasn't that tried once?

 

[tmurray]

That's quite the libertarian propaganda. There are certainly those in the civil service that wouldn't cut it in the private sector. I also see people in the private sector who will not cut it in the private sector. I was in the private sector and did quite well. I took an enormous pay cut to get my current job. I did it because I wanted to start a family and being away from home for months at a time was not acceptable to me. More and more, I am seeing people like myself, who are highly skilled professionals who value the benefits of public sector work more than the pay of the private sector. I would also question how effective your motive of convincing inspectors not to do their jobs while continuing to insult their intelligence.

 

[conarb]

That's quite the libertarian propaganda.

I am a Libertarian, can't stand either Republicans or Democrats, in 1952 when Eisenhower got in with both houses I kept waiting for them to kill Social Security, finally realized that once these socialistic programs get in they never go away, we are in the inevitable slide into socialism and tyranny, just like the Germans and Russians.

There are certainly those in the civil service that wouldn't cut it in the private sector.

Most are risk averse people who sacrifice opportunity and wealth for security, but somebody has to do it, but never me.

I also see people in the private sector who will not cut it in the private sector. I was in the private sector and did quite well. I took an enormous pay cut to get my current job. I did it because I wanted to start a family and being away from home for months at a time was not acceptable to me. More and more, I am seeing people like myself, who are highly skilled professionals who value the benefits of public sector work more than the pay of the private sector.

I also see successful professionals who have given up because of the enormous paperwork and loss of freedom, if my doctors have been unable to retire they have joined hospital groups first because fo the insurance companies then Obamacare, they now work for a salary, insurance, and pensions, like you some like it, they work 5 days a week 9 to 5. A lawyer friend saw medical malpractice as our biggest problem, he folded up his practice and went to work for the Department of Consumer Affairs prosecuting incompetent doctors.

I would also question how effective your motive of convincing inspectors not to do their jobs while continuing to insult their intelligence.

Good point, I wonder myself why I stay around here, especially since I've retired, I know of at lest two inspectors who have quit rather than put up with the direction codes have taken, many of our older members have flat out disappeared. I guess I hate the New World Order, socialism, the social justice agenda, and political correctness so much that I hang around to counterbalance the far left turn this forum has taken, maybe because I have degrees in philosophy and law I am one of the few who can counteract people like Mark Handler who has tried to make this forum his personal political platform. And BTW, I came from a time when inspectors were my best friends, I guess I hope that those old days could return for younger generations of builders and we could have reasonable codes and code enforcement, and above all get politics out of codes.

 

[ADAguy]

You can't go back anymore, our children and grandchildren will never know what we knew.
Then again you could always retreat to New Zealand.

 

[Yikes]

In a related news story, maybe it will eventually be simpler for Hollywood to just stop making movies altogether:

Court: Movie theaters must accommodate deaf-blind patrons
AP News, 10-6-2017

Federal disability law requires movie theaters to provide specialized interpreters to patrons who are deaf and blind, an appeals court said Friday.

The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Cinemark, the nation’s third-largest movie chain, in a case involving a Pennsylvania man who wanted to see the 2014 movie “Gone Girl” and asked a Cinemark theater in Pittsburgh to supply a “tactile interpreter.” The theater denied his request.

The plaintiff, Paul McGann, is a movie enthusiast who reads American Sign Language through touch. He uses a method of tactile interpretation that involves placing his hands over the hands of an interpreter who uses sign language to describe the movie’s action, dialogue and even the audience response.

The federal appeals court concluded Friday that tactile interpreters are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that public accommodations furnish “auxiliary aids and services” to patrons with vision, hearing and speech disabilities.

“It would be impossible for a deaf-blind person to experience the movie and understand the content without the provision of tactile interpretation,” said Carol A. Horowitz, managing attorney of Disability Rights Pennsylvania, which filed suit on McGann’s behalf.

The ruling said Cinemark still can argue that providing the interpreters would present an “undue burden,” an exception to the disability law that takes into account the cost of the accommodation and the business’s ability to pay for it. It sent the case back to a federal judge to consider that argument.

Because of the intensive nature of the work, McGann requires the services of two interpreters. The interpreters cost a few hundred dollars per showing.

Cinemark earned $257 million in 2016. The movie chain also has said that before McGann, it had never before received a request for tactile interpretation.

A spokesperson for the Plano, Texas-based chain said Cinemark is evaluating its legal options.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed documents in support of McGann.

 

[conarb]

The extent they have to go explains something else to me, as I've said before I can't hear worth a damn anymore, when called to jury duty I always ask to be excused but they refuse after I fill out a form. After being seated in a courtroom the judge asked who the juror was who was hard of hearing, I raised my hand and a bailiff came over and handed me a device to hang around my neck, the judge then asked me if I could hear him, I said "Barely", he then asked me to come down to the front row and asked a woman in the middle to give me her seat. He then asked the attorneys doing voir dire to turn and face me as they interrogated the potential jurors on the stand, this was very disconcerting as the attorney was asking questions of somebody behind his back while he was talking directly to me. Again the judge asked if I could hear, again I said barely, he then asked the attorneys to speak up when asking their questions so I could hear, soon they were shouting at me in front of them while directing questions of someone behind their backs. Finally the judge thanked and dismissed me, on the way out I stopped at the jury commissioner's office and asked to be permanently excused from jury duty because of my hearing, they refused on the basis that my hearing might improve or hearing aids might be improved to the extent that I could hear. I'd say a good half hour was spent in the courtroom trying to make me hear.