Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - would right wingers repeal this, if they could ?

[steve2470]

Your thoughts ?

I thought of this because of the nice graphic about the boxes used to view the ball game.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2057062

I think they would repeal it. Steals from the rich, etc etc, usual BS.

[virgogal]

1. Why on earth would they? Disabilities happen to

everyone,even right wingers.

[steve2470]

3. you are correct of course

There's no logical reason to repeal it, but the far RW has foamed against it. In the past at least.

Opposition from business interests

Many members of the business community opposed the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Testifying before Congress, Greyhound Bus Lines stated that the Act had the potential to "...deprive millions of people of affordable intercity public transportation and thousands of rural communities of their only link to the outside world." The US Chamber of Commerce argued that the costs of the ADA would be "enormous" and have "a disastrous impact on many small businesses struggling to survive."[19] The National Federation of Independent Businesses, an organization that lobbies for small businesses, called the ADA "a disaster for small business."[20] Pro-business conservative commentators joined in opposition, writing that the Americans with Disabilities Act was "an expensive headache to millions" that would not necessarily improve the lives of people with disabilities.[21]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990#Opposition_to_the_act

[dballance]

10. Are There Any Follow Up Studies that Either Prove or Dis-Prove all the Concerns?

Last edited Sun Dec 23, 2012, 01:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Did the ADA put small businesses out of business? Did it or did it not improve the lives of the disabled?

I'm willing to wager the answer to the former is "NO" and the latter is "YES."

[steve2470]

11. I agree with you nt

[LonePirate]

2. Yes and I think right wingers would repeal every amendment except for the 2nd and 10th.

They would repeal the ADA without thinking twice about it.

[geek_sabre]

4. Wasn't it signed into law by a republican? nt

[steve2470]

5. GHWB, yes nt

[dballance]

13. And GHWB made a rather passionate statement about it at signing

At his signing of the bill he was very blunt in his support and poo-pooing the nay-sayers. One of the things, like his resignation from the NRA, that I think he did well.

[RomneyLies]

6. .

[Euphoria]

7. yes, they would try to repeal it. In a heartbeat.

[SheilaT]

8. Of course they would.

In their world people with disabilities only need to man up and overcome their problems. Don't need special accommodations. No sir, not at all. What's wrong with you?

In the real world, there are disabilities and there are disabilities. I myself am a fully abled person, so I know I really have no clue what it is like for people who need help negotiating the real world. Here's the bottom line. It does not hurt me at all if there are various accommodations for others, such as cuts in the sidewalk, special busses, and I don't even know what others actually need.

Several years ago I had a friend who was a multiple amputee, and she told me that at restaurants she never had problems getting the help she needed. We'd get together for lunch about once a month, sometimes at a buffet of some kind. She'd ask politely for the help she needed, and always got it. Of course, servers in restaurants are used to dealing with special requests on a regular basis. In other settings it's different.

I work the information desk at a hospital. Thanks to a fellow employee, I've learned to ask, "Would you be more comfortable in a wheelchair?" to people who seem to have mobility issues. The question (I hope) makes no assumptions, but makes the offer of assistance if they want it.

To repeat, I myself am in annoyingly good health, and need no extra assistance. I do try to be sensitive to others, but I suppose sometimes I'm not. I also suppose that someone familiar with one kind of disability may not especially notice some other kind.

I also believe that we are here to help each other out. I'm not always the best or kindest person out there, but I actually do try.

[steve2470]

9. you're a good person and a good liberal ! :) nt

[SheilaT]

12. I try hard to be.

I don't always succeed.

It is too easy to get trapped in my own personal reality of excellent health, a reasonable financial cushion, and being able/willing to work at the jobs I can get.

It's the excellent health thing that trips me up the most. I am 64 years old, with absolutely no health issues of any kind. A couple of years ago I fell in my driveway. At first I was most concerned about a twisted ankle and then the bruises on my leg. Halfway to work, I realized it was very painful trying to shift my car. Yes, I drive a stick shift. Anyway, I work at a hospital, and after a half hour I told my co-workers that my arm hurt so much that all I wanted to do was cry, so I needed to go to the emergency room.

The doctor who looked at my xrays told me that the good news was that I had absolutely no signs of osteoporosis or any kind of bone thinning, although I did have a nondisplaced hairline fracture of the ulna, just below the elbow.

The point of this story is to emphasize my extraordinary good health. Sometimes I have trouble empathizing with those who do not share this. I'm working on it. I keep on reminding myself that those with health issues do not choose it, certainly not in the way one might choose to wear the green sweater instead of the blue one. It's our condition in life. Mine is of good health. Others have challenges in that area.

[MADem]

15. Mass General has banks of wheelchairs at the curb outside the hospital.

They come in handy when you're bringing one old person to the hospital to visit another old person--sometimes, ya gotta walk a half mile and take two elevators to get to where you're going! It's easier when you can push someone in a chair rather than try to hold 'em up as they toddle painfully along.

[MADem]

14. Yes--because it is expensive to retrofit buildings that predate the act.

Clint Eastwood didn't want to make his shitty little health hazard of a restaurant in Carmel accessible--this was back in the eighties, IIRC...

Lousy chow at that joint, too--undercooked and overpriced.

[galoshes]

16. Except ADA is not the usual BS

There are certain parts of ADA which most everyone agrees with (blind people should be allowed to bring seeing-eye dogs everywhere; people should not actively discriminate against persons with disabilities because they disapprove of them; if you building a brand new medical center, it should have wheelchair ramps and elevators).

The controversy is about where ADA draws the line, especially when it comes to retrofitting old construction. The enforcers of ADA impose overly strict rules. For example, if the buttons on your elevator are 2" too high, then you must lower the buttons right-now, or else they will close your building. The ADA is indiscriminate in the use-case of buildings; you can operate a kickboxing gym and be required to spend $$,$$$ to rebuild your bathrooms to make them ADA complaint, even through nobody in a wheelchair will probably ever use that bathroom in your lifetime. The ADA take an extreme view on the meaning of 'accessibility'. Your swimming pool cannot have a portable pool-life which the lifeguards roll out from the shed on the occasions when it is needed, and instead you have to install a fixed pool lift because it's somehow not 'dignified' for a person in a wheelchair to have to ask the lifeguard to wheel it out.

The epitome of the lunacy of ADA was in the Supreme Court case Tennessee v. Lane, where a paraplegic (who for the record was not a disabled war vet, but someone who crippled himself in an accident where he himself was DWI) was back in court on another traffic charge. The courthouse did not have an elevator, so the judge offered to move the hearing downstairs from the 2nd floor courtroom. Lane refused. The guards offered to push his wheelchair up the steps. Lane again refused. Finally Lane hoisted himself up the stairs on his hands and butt. At the next hearing, Lane refused everything and wouldn't attend the hearing, and the court found him in contempt. There was a lawsuit, and eventually the Supreme Court sided with Lane. The ridiculousness of the decision is that if the judge was agreeable to holding the hearing in a separate room, isn't that reasonable enough? And if the defendant showed that he could go up the stairs on his hands and butt, then doesn't that action establish that the 2nd floor courtroom was 'accessible' to him? No, says the ADA. It enforces a weird concept of 'dignity' on the country where it says the disabled need to be accomodated so that they do not 'seem' disabled, even though they are.

Again, there's little controversy that in many cases (like the new construction of large public buildings) the ADA works out fine. But the opposition stems from the many other cases where strict ADA compliance costs of a lot of money bringing a very minor benefit very infrequently to very few people.