Why should the government "help" people with Aspergers?

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I think the government has a duty to support all of its citizens. And by that, I mean helping to create a society that is fair and gives everyone equal opportunities. If disability is an obstacle, you should be entitled to some kind of support.

Its not about being a minority - its about being fair.

^^^
being a Canadian is the gift that keeps on giving

^^ good thing my dad moved here, 1 year before the fall of the Berlin wall.

The first "help" (government assistance) that the U.S. government provided to anyone was "[o]n August 26, 1776, [when] the first pension legislation for the American colonies as a group was enacted. A resolution of the Continental Congress provided half pay for officers and enlisted men, including those on warships and armed vessels, who were disabled in the service of the United States and who were incapable of earning a living. The half pay was to continue for the duration of the disability" ( http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... sions.html ). In the following years, various "extra" benefits of assistance were added to the relevant laws including half pay for 7 years to widows and orphans of officers. Should the original law, which was enacted just weeks after the U.S. Declaration of Independence was adopted, have been opposed?

Among the reasons for these initial pension laws was to provide an incentive to promote military enlistment. In other words, the Congress chose to reward certain of its workers financially for their work; not because they had experienced injuries or death, but to reward them (or their heirs) for their endurance of the work involved and how that endurance affected their ability to do future work. We do much the same thing today with all workers, don't we? Then, the Congress needed military workers to succeed in its war for independence. Now, the Congress needs (even if it doesn't want) workers to succeed economically. I see little difference between the reasons and categories of recipients, then or now.

I can get behind the idea of restricting government-assistance programs for various reasons (cost, eligibility etc.), but we can't argue that the legal precedence doesn't bring us to the point where an individual's inability to work because of one or more Autism Spectrum Disorders, or their severity, isn't similar to the reasons we once used to reward our revolutionaries.

then, as now, there were privileged folk who had a smug penchant for saying to those who were not so privileged, "sink or swim, mac." let us hope that a critical mass of the smug ones doesn't take over and ruin things for everybody else.

It's pretty simple: if you have a valid disability (ASD) counts, you should get the support when you need it. Like I currently do.

However, in my province drug addiction is also a disability - so they give drug addicts money with no strings attached, it's a stupid idea, I don't know what Idiot was too stupid to see the problem... But I guess since it's a "disability" - they must give them the support, but it just negates people with real disabilities.

I guess addiction could happen to just about anybody, and it is this vulnerability to misfortune that is the ethical underpinning of charity in whatever form, including disability pensions.

I would bet good money, that many folk who became addicted to a painkilling drug [happens all the time, including to moi ] would not have chosen that result, I sure didn't. I would much rather have not have the injury needing pain relief in the first place.