John Stossel denounces Americans with Disabilities Act
September 01, 2010 1:42 pm ET by Jamison Foser
John Stossel bravely speaks out against the scourge of … public restroom stalls that are wide enough to accommodate people in wheelchairs:
Extra-wide bathroom stalls that reduce the overall number of toilets are only some of the unaccounted-for costs of the ADA.
But that’s not the only way the Americans with Disabilities Act is ruining your life, according to Stossel:
And be careful. If you fail to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his "service animal," into your restaurant, you could be in trouble.
All of this is because of the well-intentioned Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H.W. Bush signed 20 years ago.
Service snakes, no doubt, disrupt millions of small businesses a year.
Sure, Stossel’s opposition to bathroom stalls that can accommodate wheelchair-bound users may seem a bit cruel, but at least he didn’t defend, say, price-gougers who charged $20 for a bottle of water in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Oh, wait …
And that "service snake" crack is no accident- he lnows even the most hard core libertarion would never object to seeing-eye dogs, so he has to make them seem like a "slippery slope" to HIDEOUS DEVIL-SERPENTS SLOWLY DIGESTING CHRISTIAN BABIES!
Like I said, Stossel is an idiot.
They didn't just 'remove' traffic lights - they simply instituted a different type of traffic control! And that way would cost all kinds of money and would disrupt traffic terribly and would destroy local businesses all over the country.
Like almost all libertarian schemes, it might be a potential solution in an idealized, from the ground-up libertarian world, but in the real world, it would never work!
And in the real world, the idea that the ADA is too costly for the benefit it provides to the disabled is incredibly insulting to their humanity!
Wasn't it you who told me that I didn't know what I was talking about when I was saying that there WOULD be a mosque at the Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero but there is NOT a mosque in the Pentagon, and explained why! Maybe you should have done some research before you said that too!
I know what I am talking about BEFORE I post.
The point was that they didn't simply REMOVE all traffic controls - they implemented a different kind of traffic control that limits the number of cars that can be in the intersection at any one time.
Stossel's idea was that drivers could simply use eye contact and common courtesy to negotiate intersections. That's just not true! One can't just remove traffic lights - one has to replace them with another form of traffic control.
And relevant to THIS article, Stossel suggests that we don't need the ADA - that we took better care of disabled Americans BEFORE the ADA, and he says that the ADA made disabled people more disadvantaged than before! But that's not true. Sure, in a few ways, the ADA has cost businesses money, but the cost is less than the benefit that accrues! And although some companies may choose to not hire a disabled person because it means they'd have to retrofit their bathrooms, they wouldn't have hired that person BEFORE the ADA either, because their facilities weren't handicapped-ready!
Stossel suggests that government control is bad. But then he tries to use examples that aren't examples! The government STILL controls those intersections with roundabouts!
It's one of the few inconveniences of living in New Jersey.
It says stuff about THEM when they use the thumbs down as a personal attack, and nothing about me, but they're too full of animus towards me personally to understand that.
Mature people attack the message. Immature people attack the messenger.
By the way, doesn't Stossel qualify as a "service snake" himself?
:-)
John Stossel? Is that YOU????
:-)
That means that people without kids pay school taxes, because it benefits the community as a whole to have an educated populace!
And we provide greater accessibility to disabled people because it benefits our community as a whole to allow those people to fully participate in our community! And yeah, there's a cost to do that!
There's a cost to pave roads, but the benefit is greater than the costs. As I have repeatedly explained, in virtually every decision we make as individuals or as a community, we do a cost/benefit analysis to decide what our next move should be. It goes from the mundane, like "I'm thirsty, but I don't want to spend $2 on a soda from a convenience store, so I'll wait until I get home, or I'll drink water from the bathroom sink, or I'll put a breath mint in my mouth to stimulate saliva, or I'll eat a piece of fruit". It goes to the really serious, like "How much should we mandate that businesses have to spend in order to facilitate access for disabled people? What's the benefit provided given the cost?"
Maybe it is time for some of those second amendment remedies.
"You know you can't hide,
When you're crippled inside."
Emphasis mine.
Under the ADA, Olson (a Cato Institute guy) notes, fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally.
Yeah, we treat THEM unequally so that they will END UP with equal access!
But 3 people gave me a thumbs down - solely because it was ME who said it! If what I wrote was troubling to someone, then YOUR reinforcing my point would be equally troubling!!! But those same 3 people didn't thumb down YOUR post.
What fools that think that their personal attacks actually MEAN anything... but that's the best they can do! How weak is that - that they can't do anything more powerful to "attack" me besides make a personal attack thumbs down? How impotent ARE they, and why doesn't it bother them to be so thoroughly impotent?? I swear, it's hilarious, ain't it?
And nope, when I respond to someone like I did above, I am NOT giving them pleasure.
When YOU interact with them as though they are trying to participate in a fair and reasonable debate, that's feeding the trolls.
And you're totally wrong when you say "they can only attack me if I let them". First off, their personal attack thumbs down aren't AN actual attack on me - they are evidence of THEIR inept behavior and THEIR impotence. A personal attack is not an attack, and isn't reflective on the person who is being personally attacked. Secondly, MY behavior (creating a post) isn't me "letting them" attack me. MMFA places thumbs up and thumbs down on everyone's posts! I am not "letting them" do anything by making posts! Me making a post doesn't let them do anything. I swear, get a clue! They can "attack" me anytime I make a post, and so the ONLY control I have over those "attacks" would be to refrain from posting, which would make THEM win! But YOU say that I am letting them attack me? Really? REALLY?
You've already demonstrated that you don't get this. I've explained it to you numerous times and yet you STILL mis-portray it at virtually every opportunity. You should stop exposing your blind spot about trolls and their behavior.
If you think you have a point, please explain to me how the comment below (the comment that got the 3 thumbs down that WAS THE POST that was being referenced, remember!) has any content that egged them on or where I LET them attack me.
Stossel's article says
Under the ADA, Olson (a Cato Institute guy) notes, fairness does not mean treating disabled people the same as non-disabled people. Rather it means accommodating them. In other words, the law requires that people be treated unequally.
Yeah, we treat THEM unequally so that they will END UP with equal access!
I say: "Stossel's Attitude Feeds Discrimination."
I remember when he did a piece on organic produce way back when. He had 'experts' who showed that the organic food didn't taste any better, so therefore what was the big deal?
Oh he did more than that - he claimed that big agra produced veggies didn't have any signs of pesticides. But the lab didn't test for pesticides.
Link
if you can't visibly see it, it doesn't exist and it cant hurt us.
(Except for angles, Supreme Beings, creators and such.)
He is an ignorant moron and should hope that the Universe doesn't give him a hands-on lesson in the benefits of having access to a bathroom when you are in a wheelchair.
There IS a cost to having to install a ramp and stairs instead of just stairs - stairs take up less physical space, and so you have to give up space to the ramp that you could have used in another way. And having to have a handicapped stall means that your bathroom has to be bigger.
But that cost is worth it in order to give all people equal access whenever possible!
However I see your point if someone wants to make a case for not giving the handicapped access to a building or bathroom facilities. It's a poor arguement and thank The Creator that we have laws that MAKE businesses do the right thing and ensure that the disabled have the same rights as we do.
There IS a cost to making buildings handicapped compliant. It is THAT COST that Stossel rails against. In some cases, you're right, it's not a very large cost, which even more refutes Stossel's point.
Before we had those laws, most businesses didn't do the same things - they thought that separate but equal was okay. It's not.