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androbot01
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18 Feb 2015, 6:28 pm

Newsweek link

Quote:
“His life is bad, and he blames being autistic rather than blaming a world that is not set up for autistic people,” says Walker. “It is no different than a black person blaming his race rather than society for his problems.… It has never made a gay person happy to hate himself for being gay. It’s a recipe for misery.”

Mitchell steadfastly demurs. He feels his experience isn’t at all like the kind of oppression that comes with being gay or black. Prejudice against such minorities, he says, does not usually limit their abilities to find love or friends. His deficits, he explains, are social.


The article talks about brain shock therapy for autism. I don't think I would do that.



Moromillas
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19 Feb 2015, 1:39 am

This is the top comment on the article, 20 people have actually thumbed it up so far...

Lenny Schafer wrote:
Great article. Thank you Newsweek. Autism is a disability and nothing less. It is not only preposterous to assert we should not to try and cure the disabled, but also immoral. Autism is a wound that should be healed, it does not define the whole person who deserves love and community.


The next guy compares AS to cancer.

How to we fight back against this bigotry?



androbot01
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19 Feb 2015, 3:28 am

Moromillas wrote:
This is the top comment on the article, 20 people have actually thumbed it up so far...
Lenny Schafer wrote:
Great article. Thank you Newsweek. Autism is a disability and nothing less. It is not only preposterous to assert we should not to try and cure the disabled, but also immoral. Autism is a wound that should be healed, it does not define the whole person who deserves love and community.


The next guy compares AS to cancer.

How to we fight back against this bigotry?


Here's a comment from a guy who claims to have ASD:

Quote:
Here's the definition of "Autism": Autism is mercury induced brain damage that causes the victim to smear feces, bash their heads through walls and into cement, scream in excruciating pain for hours each day and go through life without ever learning how to speak, read, write, use a toilet, communicate in any appreciable manner or get laid. Autism sucks. There is nothing good about it.
Autism is a specific category on the autism spectrum reserved for the lowest functioning cases. There is only one level of autism.

Yikes!



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19 Feb 2015, 10:57 am

How does John Best claim to have a ASD? He is infamous in the community. Argues that Asperger's isn't on the spectrum and it's not autism. It's speculated he is on the spectrum himself and I am not sure why.


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androbot01
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19 Feb 2015, 11:43 am

League_Girl wrote:
How does John Best claim to have a ASD? He is infamous in the community. Argues that Asperger's isn't on the spectrum and it's not autism. It's speculated he is on the spectrum himself and I am not sure why.

A Google search revealed a lot of hits for him. His posts seem to be a bit paranoid, in general.



Jono
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19 Feb 2015, 4:20 pm

League_Girl wrote:
How does John Best claim to have a ASD? He is infamous in the community. Argues that Asperger's isn't on the spectrum and it's not autism. It's speculated he is on the spectrum himself and I am not sure why.


They aren't talking about John Best, they're talking about Jonathan Mitchell which is a different person. He's apparently an autistic who wants a cure and he's the author of the blog "Autism Gadfly".



androbot01
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19 Feb 2015, 4:36 pm

Jono wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
How does John Best claim to have a ASD? He is infamous in the community. Argues that Asperger's isn't on the spectrum and it's not autism. It's speculated he is on the spectrum himself and I am not sure why.


They aren't talking about John Best, they're talking about Jonathan Mitchell which is a different person. He's apparently an autistic who wants a cure and he's the author of the blog "Autism Gadfly".


John Best is the guy who made the comment regarding the article about Jonathan Mitchell.



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19 Feb 2015, 5:02 pm

Very good article and enjoyable read. I personally do not want to be cured of asperger's syndrome and I have never embraced the notion, but since becoming dissentient towards collectivist rights I have now disaffiliated myself from the neurodiversity movement (I no longer believe in "social justice"). I have retrospectively analyzed many of Jonathan's Mitchell's critiques about the social justice movement as-well as some of its staunch adherents on his blog "Autism Gadfly" and I found them quite suspiciously riveting. For instance, he has questioned the diagnosis of the Nobel Prize winning economist Vernon L Smith as he self-diagnosed himself with the ASQ test and not by a professional clinician. More intriguingly, he has criticized Autism Speaks (the anti-Christ institute to neurodivergents and spectrumites) for redistributing grant payments to a cognitive neuroscientist and proponent of neurodiversity named Laurent Mottron between 2005 and 2008, who upholds philosophical foundations completely antithetical to them (very bizarre).

The idea that most AS/HFA individuals don’t want to be cured is all a parable (irrespective of what the WP polls conclusively state) and it should be the individual's right such as Jonathan's to decide whether they want to be cured (once it's discovered in the foreseeable future) - it's their freedom of choice. Neurodiversity may be applicable as a hybrid of cognitive liberty for the talented and gifted, but it’s a neurobiological delineation of multiculturalism when in concomitance with disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychotic syndromes, intermittent explosive disorder, selective mutism, dysnomia, OCD, depression, epilepsy and sensory integrative dysfunction. It’s also conspicuous to me from the article's facebook comments that the conspiratorialist crank John Best is at it again who believes that neurodiversity is a big pharma/CIA conspiracy to indoctrinate parents of autistic children by covering up the "fact" that ASD is all just simply "mercury induced brain damage".


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19 Feb 2015, 6:19 pm

I haven't read the newsweek article yet, but I've read Mitchell's blogs and usually find his logic laughably absurd.

In reality, if there's ever a cure, it won't be a genuine choice unfortunately.



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19 Feb 2015, 6:39 pm

No, there's never going to be a choice. It'll only be a choice for parents, and we can already observe what choice they will make for AS youth. They're so mired in hatred for AS, they're desperate for eugenic elimination.

Edit: In the comments you can find a cancer comparison, where it has been thumbed up many times. That's what they think of us.



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20 Feb 2015, 2:40 am

How Jonathon feels about himself is how I felt as a kid when I knew I was different and didn't know why. I thought me being different was the reason for being an outcast and why I was treated different by everyone. I think if someone wants a cure for their condition, that is their business. How someone feels about them self doesn't mean that is how they feel about other people. I have never read his blog so I don't know how he feels about autistic people beside himself and I had never heard of him until now.


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Moromillas
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20 Feb 2015, 2:51 am

League_Girl wrote:
How Jonathon feels about himself is how I felt as a kid when I knew I was different and didn't know why. I thought me being different was the reason for being an outcast and why I was treated different by everyone. I think if someone wants a cure for their condition, that is their business. How someone feels about them self doesn't mean that is how they feel about other people. I have never read his blog so I don't know how he feels about autistic people beside himself and I had never heard of him until now.


As did most of us, probably. Blaming myself and thought something along the lines of I'm stupid, I'm a horrible person. But then we grow up, discover the truth, and find out that all the causes are off, that all the self hate isn't accurate.

I've not read his blog or heard of him either, but from the sound of things, he's an intellectual lightweight, that perhaps didn't grow up.



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28 Feb 2015, 12:39 am

I don't have a problem with Jonathan Mitchell wanting a cure or attributing all his problems to autism.
He represents only himself.


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28 Feb 2015, 12:42 am

btbnnyr wrote:
I don't have a problem with Jonathan Mitchell wanting a cure or attributing all his problems to autism.
He represents only himself.

Unfortunately, most people have stupidly done some mental gymnastics, and now think that half the community supports eugenics.



btbnnyr
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28 Feb 2015, 12:53 am

But Jonathan Mitchell is still free to say his views, and others are free to say their views and also criticize what is wrong with Jonathan Mitchell's. I don't think people like Jonathan Mitchell who are so negative and make nasty comments to his critics and attribute all problems to autism and have downer attitude in life will prevail in their views over people who have more positive approaches over time. It is not like anyone is going to find a cure soon, esp. for common variant common trait kind of autism, so there is time for people to make progress taking positive approaches.


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28 Feb 2015, 1:00 am

btbnnyr wrote:
But Jonathan Mitchell is still free to say his views, and others are free to say their views and also criticize what is wrong with Jonathan Mitchell's.

Not really, they created a debate where there was none. It's like running an anti-climate change story, and giving climate change denial "scientists" a platform, while making it seem like there's a debate about climate change.