If you’re okay with the government enforcing someone’s ownership of multiple houses but not okay with the government limiting how many houses someone can own, then your objection is not about “big government”. You’re a corporate bootlicker who believes that government that benefits the rich doesn’t count as government.
(Apologies because this is from memory, and for reminding people.)
“We’re the House Committee on Women’s Health, little missy. I think we know more about women’s health than a bunch of science-y nerdles. Now, when was the date of your last lady-curse and how many blood diapers did you use?”
Sue gets up at 6 a.m. and fills her coffeepot with water to prepare her morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With her first swallow of coffee, she takes her daily medication. Her medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of her medications are paid for by her employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Sue gets it too.
She prepares her morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Sue’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the shower, Sue reaches for her shampoo. Her bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for her right to know what she was putting on her body and how much it contained.
Sue dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air she breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
She walks to the subway station for her government-subsidized ride to work. It saves her considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Sue begins her work day. She has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Sue’s employer pays these standards because Sue’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Sue is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, she’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn’t think she should lose her home because of her temporary misfortune.
Its noon and Sue needs to make a bank deposit so she can pay some bills. Sue’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Sue’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Sue has to pay her Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and her below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Sue and the government would be better off if she was educated and earned more money over her lifetime.
Sue is home from work. She plans to visit her father this evening at his farm home in the country. She gets in her car for the drive. Her car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.
She arrives at her childhood home. Her generation was the third to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
She is happy to see her father, who is now retired. Her father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Sue wouldn’t have to.
Sue gets back in her car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Sue enjoys throughout her day. Sue agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m self-made and believe everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.
pratchett will write an entire book about the grim reaper pretending to be santa claus while the grim reaper’s granddaughter goes about hunting down the dumbass who decided to kill santa, and then right when you think you’re done and the oddly pointed shenanigans are winding down he hits you with “humans need fantasy to be human. to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape,” and knocks you into next wednesday
“Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does James Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.”
April 20th: What are your thoughts on terminology? (ie, high functioning and low functioning vs high support needs and low support needs, nonspeaking vs nonverbal, person first vs identity first, etc)
Utter bullshit
An autistic person is an autistic person
My least favorite one is “low intelligence” because it’s just not fucking true
Any “low intelligence” autistic person I’ve met has been a million times smarter than any allistic person I’ve met and I’m not just saying that to be corny I genuinely fucking believe it
I would be considered “high intelligence” by these definitions and yet the times I feel most intelligent are when I’m experiencing the world in the same ways that “low intelligence” people I’ve known have expressed that they do
To me the “spectrum” of autism is only a spectrum of masking
That’s it
How much are you able to mask and mold yourself into fitting this world
I’m not fucking kidding when I say any “low intelligence” or “high support needs” people I’ve met are what I would be like if I wasn’t trying to change and adapt and translate myself
If I could just be me as I naturally am
That is what I would be
There’s no such fucking thing as intelligence there is only OH PERFECT THERE
THERE
FUCKING THERE
“LOW MASKING” AND “HIGH MASKING”
THAT’S THE TERMINOLOGY I’LL USE
FUCKING THERE
If “low intelligence” or “high support needs” people find it useful and/or empowering to use that language I get it
It’s nigh impossible to convey what our experience is like to allistic people and I highly doubt that there will be widespread understanding of it in any of our lifetimes
They’re always just gonna see an allistic person with deficits
Maybe even an allistic person with deficits and talents
But they will never understand how we perceive the world and how much more fucking rich and complex our experiences are than we’ll ever be able to communicate
So if you need to tell someone something like “Listen to me I am fucking stupid I am less capable than you I will never meet your expectations no matter how hard I try I am genuinely just not good enough” in order for them to allow you not to hurt yourself
I totally fucking get it
But I just hope you know that you’re infinitely smarter than they’ll ever be
Genuinely
Not in a corny way or like “oh they’re so wise they only care about the simple things in life I wish I was like that!”
No
Genuinely
You see shit that is more complex than they will ever fucking understand
I’m telling you once they invent Doctor-Who-forehead-bump-style telepathic communication autistic people are going to change the fucking world
As for autistic person vs person with autism I really don’t fucking care
Words are meaningless they’re little more than a tool to manipulate allistics into giving a shit about us since they won’t take us seriously any other way
I think autism/autistic is kind of shitty terminology to begin with and I think we should invent new ways of talking about it to better convey our experiences
Autism should not be a noun it is not an object
Autistic is better especially because there’s allistic as an equivalent
But I think the terms should say more about what the experience actually means
Allistic’s etymology derives from nothing but “not autistic”
Zero specificity to what it means for them and thus zero specificity to what it means about our differences
I think we should work on summing up how we each experience the world and finding a term to represent that
Even if it’s scientific like the brain differences or something
White matter connectivity vs white matter separation or something
SOMETHING to express concisely what it ACTUALLY means to be autistic
Because for all the research they’ve done, still nobody on this earth seems to fucking know
Also nonverbal misses the point too
Like out of any of the terms listed here it’s probably the most accurate
But it’s still not enough
It’s more like
GOT IT “high translating” vs “low/non translating”
There we fucking gooooooo aaaaa aqkwgqisgqqisjqiqhsiqiwjsnshyqqijsqgqujdjfnff
This shit is so common sense and so fucking easy if only people could just understand what the fuck was actually going on in our lives
Personally I would consider myself semi- to high-translating on a good day
Never ever 100% ever
And I am very very easily dysregulated into a low- or even non-translating state
How the fuck am I supposed to have the energy for translating in a state where my literal entire experience of the world is incorrect and painful
Anqvqgqgqqfqgwksjqdqhh do skacqfqjsbacfqqkavxqdqhqcqdqcvqvbbqqgqqcqbqbqbqnqqq
So yeah words aren’t real and we need to come up with better ones that are defined by our own experience and not just allistic people fucking guessing
.
Oh and if it wasn’t already understood, “high/low functioning” is the worst one of all and needs to be eradicated because it’s literally just fucking eugenics
