Thinking In Metaphors

Man shot churchgoers over liberal views

CS, — What do you mean by "real life threat that ‘homophobia’ has on a group of people?!" It doesn't make sense because the word 'homophobia' makes no sense. Condoning sinful behavior has nothing to do with accepting people for who they are. I’m not judging homosexuals for what they do. I leave that job for God. I love homosexual people, but I am sickened by how they push their values upon society and insist that they are right when saying that there is nothing wrong about it. Tolerance is grossly misunderstood. This is the problem when people have different beliefs. I'm supposed to give up what I believe because someone else doesn't like it? I doubt other people give up what they believe to please me and I don't even expect them to do so. This is the natural outcome when people live to please people instead of living to please God. No one can please every person.

I'm offended that you equate Aspergers in the same catagory as sexual behavior. Aspergers is who the person is. Homosexual behavior is just that . . . behavior. If that wasn't so, then people who once were homosexuals would not be able to stop being homosexuals and that’s not the case because there are ex-homosexual people. An Aspergian will always be an Aspergian just like a neurotypical will always be a neurotypical.

If this looks like it will turn into a debate, I will turn off comments on this post. I have a right to say what I find offensive just like everyone else. Are we now going to have 'offensophobias?'

Below is the real life consequence of hate speech masquerading as a religious/political/personal belief:

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press Writer

Knoxville's police chief says the man accused of a shooting that killed two people at a Tennessee church targeted the congregation because of its liberal social stance.

Chief Sterling Owen IV said Monday that police found a letter in Jim D. Adkisson's car. Owen said Adkisson was apparently frustrated over being out of work and had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement."

Adkisson is charged with first-degree murder. Police say a gunman entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's performance Sunday. No children were hurt.

The church is known for advocating women's and gay rights and founding an American Civil Liberties Union chapter.

Similar to autism, no single gene has been found to identify homosexuality. However, to say homosexuality or autism is a choice (see Michael Savage on autism and brats), seems to rely more on religious and or political/personal beliefs than a scientific belief.

In 1993, Dean Hamer, a molecular biologist at the National Cancer Institute, studied 40 pairs of gay brothers and published his results in Science. With a technique called linkage mapping, Hamer identified a region called Xq28 on the X chromosome (inherited from the mother) that was statistically correlated to homosexuality. In 1995, a second study by Hamer and others confirmed that finding.

In 1999, researchers led by George Rice at the University of Western Ontario in Canada studied the same brain region in 52 gay male sibling pairs and reported contradictory findings. Clearly, more research is needed to prove homosexuality is inherited. But Dr. Fred Berlin, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the basic conclusion is already clear: Homosexuality, he said, "is not due to voluntary choice. None of us as kids sat down and said, `Do I want to be attracted to members of the same gender?' "

Neurotypicalism Everyday

I made this video a year ago and its a parody of the often referenced "Autism Everyday" video. NT's shouldn't feel I'm targeting them. The reason behind the video was to demonstrate that editing is an art form and you can change the characterization of a group of people based on how you edit them.

Editing people into one dimensional characters is a very mean and repugnant thing to do and the producer of this film (Autism Everyday) Lauren Thierry and the marketer and owner of Autism Everyday should be ashamed of themselves for contributing to the one dimensional representation of a group of people (autistics) that they claim they want to help. If that is the type of help they offer, then we don't need it.

Please write to Autism Speaks and ask them to remove Autism Everyday from the public because one dimensional views of autistics is not what we need.

Bob and Suzanne Wright
c/o Autism Speaks, Inc.
2 Park Avenue, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10016

Unbelievable. If anyone thinks institutional discrimination against African Americans is a thing of the past, then they clearly don't know what they are talking about.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio were awarded nearly $11 million Thursday by a federal jury that found local authorities denied them public water service for decades out of racial discrimination.

Each of the 67 plaintiffs was awarded $15,000 to $300,000, depending on how long they had lived in the Coal Run neighborhood, about 5 miles east of Zanesville in Muskingum County in east-central Ohio.

The money covers both monetary losses and the residents' pain and suffering between 1956, when water lines were first laid in the area, and 2003, when Coal Run got public water.

The lawsuit was filed in 2003 after the Ohio Civil Rights Commission concluded the residents were victims of discrimination. The city, county and East Muskingum Water Authority all denied it and noted that many residents in the lightly populated county don't have public water.

Coal Run residents either paid to have wells dug, hauled water for cisterns or collected rain water so they could drink, cook and bathe.

"As a child, I thought it was normal because everyone done it in my neighborhood," said one of the plaintiffs, Cynthia Hale Hairston, 47. "But I realized as an adult it was wrong."Colfax described the verdict as unique among civil rights cases nationally, both in the nature of the ruling and the size of the award.

The jury in U.S. District Court found that failing to provide water service to the residents violated state and federal civil rights laws. The lawsuit was not a class-action. Colfax said 25 to 30 families live in Coal Run now.

The water authority must pay 55 percent of the damages, while the county owes 25 percent and the city owes 20 percent, plaintiffs' attorney Reed Colfax said. The water authority no longer exists, and the county would be responsible for paying that share of the judgment.

Zanesville attorney Michael Valentine said in court that he intended to appeal but declined to comment further. The county commission also plans to appeal.

Attorney Mark Landes, who represented the county and water district, called the verdict disappointing. He said jurors were not allowed to hear defendants' testimony that neighborhood residents were offered water service years ago and refused it.

Colfax said he was unaware of any evidence that was excluded from the trial.

"This was a case that was started and fired by out-of-town lawyers who saw an opportunity for a cash settlement," Landes said.

The plaintiffs' attorneys will receive a separate amount to be decided later by a judge, Colfax said.
John Relman, a civil rights attorney based in Washington, D.C., who represented the residents, said the jury heard hours of testimony and saw hundreds of pages of documentation over the seven-week trial.

"This verdict vindicates that this (treatment) was because of their race," he said. "The jury agreed with that and issued a verdict based on a full airing of the facts."

Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers said she was pleased.

"This decision speaks firmly about the importance of treating citizens with equal respect, regardless of race," she said in a statement.

Plaintiff Frederick Martin said the long wait was worth it.

He and his nine siblings shared two tubs of water between them on bath nights when he was growing up. He left Coal Run, built on a former coal mine, in 1970 so his children wouldn't have to endure the same living conditions, he said.

"Today I feel that we are really blessed, to know and to see justice being met," Martin said. "And to see, regardless of who we are, there is a price to pay if you discriminate against people."

The plaintiffs' attorneys successfully argued that the decision not to pipe water to the plaintiffs was racially motivated, painting a picture of a community with a history of segregation. Black residents of Coal Run Road were denied water over the years while nearby white neighbors were provided it, they said.

Landes countered that about half of Muskingum County residents are not tied into the public water system even today. Among those without it are county commissioners, judges and other prominent officials, he said.
Zanesville has about 25,000 residents on the edge of the state's Appalachian region. One in every five families is below the federal poverty level, and the unemployment rate in Muskingum County in May was 7.4 percent. The national unemployment rate that month was 5.5 percent.

"Skinner Confuses Science with Terminology". - Noam Chomsky

It's been my experience that behaviorists are quick to recoil and become defensive with inquiry that challenges their "science". From my observation, behaviorist's reaction to skepticism is very similar to the alternative/biomed advocates. Both groups become very wed to their respective dogma's that they will ignore fundamental questions of ethics if it interferes with the ability of the dogma to prosper and survive.

Because I agree with Interverbal when he states; "Advocacy, no matter how worthy the cause, needs to be factually accurate. No real service is done in its absence." I want to examine the accuracy of the behaviorism and biomed communities.

Both groups cite as evidence studies, anectdotes and faux terminology to support their positions. The behaviorists use Lovaas' 1987 study and his unique 47% indistinguishable criteria (which has never been replicated independent of Lovaas' small group of behaviorists) to sell their "services". Especially Lovaas' students like McEachin and Leaf who have created large multinational corporations citing their own results as proof of their efficacy. However, they conveniently leave out from their marketing materials the fact that the children in that study were never randomized and were subject to physical aversives. Is that honest or is that protecting the dogma of behaviorism? Do scientists leave out very relevant facts (no randomization and the use of physical aversives) in discussing their results with prospective customers? We expect salesman to leave out inconvenient facts. But scientists?

Biomed uses equally worthless and unproven evidence such as "recovered children" as evidence yet these children presented don't seem "recovered" or non autistic at all, they simply appear like older autistic children.

If you challenge the biomed/recovery groups, many will respond by saying "your attacking parents", your "too high functioning", "your a pharma shill", "you want to hurt kids", and "science has proven mercury causes autism". All this is dogmatic.

If challenged, both groups simply recoil like a viper ready to strike rather than acknowledging that perhaps they could be wrong. This isn't how science works. In science, nothing is considered a certainty, its only our best educated conclusion given the knowledge we have now. For instance, and I don't mean to pick on Interverbal here, but when I stated that ABA has caused PTSD in autistics (based on information supplied to me by 2 autistics who had been diagnosed with PTSD as a result of undergoing ABA as children) and that there aren't any studies that have been done to look into possible complications from ABA such as PTSD, his response wasn't what I would expect from a curious and science based person.

Me:

"The field hasn't done any studies that I know of that look at PTSD in those that went through ABA"

Interverbal:

"Nor should they. There is no real suggestion of an ABA-PTSD connection. The suggestion there could be, was made and continues to be echoed mostly by those in the pyschodynamic paradigm. There are lots of genuinely good criticisms of behavior analysis and ABA in autism specifically. A possible PTSD connection isn't one of them. This is the type of comment that behavior analysts laugh off and correctly so."

Based on Interverbal's representation of behaviorist's views, there is no need to accumulate empirical data in order to draw a scientific conclusion. We can actually draw a conclusion without studying a hypothesis (ABA in very young children can cause PTSD) at all. That's not scientific, that's a dogmatic response. Behaviorists as he stated would simply laugh off the possibility that being subjected to thousands of hours of very structured ABA in children as young as 2 years old would have no negative emotional residue which could possibly cause PTSD. No need to study because it cannot possibly occur. One would think that those interested in human behavior would be curious about how their "therapy" might affect the emotional well being of autistics?

And like the biomed/recovered kids videos, behaviorists also have their dishonest videos such as Lovaas' promotional video from 1988 entitled "Behavior Treatment of Autistic Children" that "documented" his 1987 study. Below is a video I made criticizing the promotional video "Behavior Treatment of Autistic Children".

The Misrepresentations of Ivar Lovaas

The video includes two subjects, Ricky and Pamela. Ricky and Pamela's stories are presented as case studies in what can happen to a child when ABA is cut off during the 2 years of recommended "therapy". Ricky and Pamela are shown as children who started off as relatively non-verbal, constant tantruming, self stimulatory and unresponsive but rapidly respond to Lovaas' 40 hour a week "therapy" of intensive ABA. When ABA was cut off, they "regressed" back into their autism. What the video failed to reveal is that in order to elicit the responses appearing in the video, both Ricky and Pamela were subjected to slaps on the face and electrified floors. The video makers knew that this portion of Ricky and Pamela's story would not "sale" very well to the general audience for this video and thus they conveniently left it out. I consider the act of omission of important facts dishonest. During this same time period, Lovaas was building his ABA "empire" to provide and charge for "services" in hopes that desperate parents wouldn't bother to check the facts. While no proof of motivation and certainly circumstantial, I do find it deliciously suspicious that Dr. Lovaas opened his business shortly after his 1993 follow-up publication and the publication of the best selling book "Let Me Hear Your Voice" by Catherine Maurice. The National Autistic Society writes on it's website "In recent years there has been renewed interest in the Lovaas method following the publication of Let Me Hear Your Voice, so I'm not alone in tying the two together. I can only imagine parents then, like now, were beating down the doors of Lovaas' office to grab onto the latest recovery fad. Therefore, it is my contention that Lovaas' disciples have every motivation to promote his study, to promote the 47% myth, to minimize and omit important facts (physical aversives) all of which have led parents down a 2nd money pit avenue known as behaviorism. No different from the biomed/recovery crowd. Its all about protecting the dogma and none of it stands up to scrutiny. Both "industries" (biomed and behaviorism) have a totalitarian view of autism. If a group "dedicated" to "remediating" autism refuses to acknowledge that their profession or industry has abused and tortured autistic people (chelation deaths/electrified floors/electric shocks/physical aversives/lupron/etc. ad nauseum), then they are not interested in truth, but in preserving a dogma.

Noam Chomskey is a professor of linguistics at M.I.T. and perhaps one of the most engaging and prolific intellectuals of the 20th century. In 1971, The New York Review of Books published his essay "The Case Against B.F. Skinner". Chomsky makes the case that Skinner's theory of Verbal Behavior isn't really science but a sort of secular dogma (dogma is my interpretation). In light of my ongoing conversation with Interverbal, I thought the passage below selected from "The Case Against B.F. Skinner" summed up the impasse I have with Interverbal, that is that I don't believe verbal behavior is a science but a set of terminology, like Chomsky, that is unscientific, even devoid of common sense in its use of terminology. Perhaps this is one reason why we view the word torture so differently.

The libertarians and humanists whom Skinner scorns object to totalitarianism out of respect for freedom and dignity. But, Skinner argues, these notions are merely the residue of traditional mystical beliefs and must be replaced by the stern scientific notions of behavioral analysis. However, there exists no behavioral science incorporating empirically supported propositions that are not trivial and that apply to human affairs or support a behavioral technology. For this reason Skinner's book contains no clearly formulated substantive hypotheses or proposals. We can at least begin to speculate coherently about the acquisition of certain systems of knowledge and belief on the basis of experience and genetic endowment, and can outline the general nature of some device that might duplicate aspects of this achievement. But how does a person who has acquired systems of knowledge and belief then proceed to use them in his daily life? About this we are entirely in the dark, at the level of scientific inquiry.

If there were some science capable of treating such matters it might well be concerned precisely with freedom and dignity and might suggest possibilities for enhancing them. Perhaps, as the classical literature of freedom and dignity sometimes suggests, there is an intrinsic human inclination toward free creative inquiry and productive work, and humans are not merely dull mechanisms formed by a history of reinforcement and behaving predictably with no intrinsic needs apart from the need for physiological satiation. Then humans are not fit subjects for manipulation, and we will seek to design a social order accordingly. But we cannot, at present, turn to science for insight into these matters. To claim otherwise is pure fraud. For the moment, an honest scientist will admit at once that we understand virtually nothing, at the level of scientific inquiry, with regard to human freedom and dignity.

There is, of course, no doubt that behavior can be controlled, for example, by threat of violence or a pattern of deprivation and reward. This much is not at issue, and the conclusion is consistent with a belief in "autonomous man." If a tyrant has the power to require certain acts, whether by threat of punishment or by allowing only those who perform these acts to escape from deprivation (e.g., by restricting employment to such people), his subjects may choose to obey -- though some may have the dignity to refuse. They will understand the difference between this compulsion and the laws that govern falling bodies.

Of course, they are not free. Sanctions backed by force restrict freedom, as does differential reward. An increase in wages, in Marx's phrase, "would be nothing more than a better remuneration of slaves, and would not restore, either to the worker or to the work, their human significance and worth." But it would be absurd to conclude merely from the fact that freedom is limited, that "autonomous man" is an illusion, or to overlook the distinction between a person who chooses to conform, in the face of threat or force or deprivation, and a person who "chooses" to obey Newtonian principles as he falls from a high tower.

The inference remains absurd even where we can predict the course of action that most "autonomous men" would select, under conditions of extreme duress and limited opportunity for survival. The absurdity merely becomes more obvious when we consider the real social world, in which determinable "probabilities of response" are so slight as to have virtually no predictive value. And it would be not absurd but grotesque to argue that since circumstances can be arranged under which behavior is quite predictable -- as in a prison, for example, or the concentration camp society "designed" above -- therefore there need be no concern for the freedom and dignity of "autonomous man." When such conclusions are taken to be the result of a "scientific analysis," one can only be amazed at human gullibility.

Skinner confuses "science" with terminology. He apparently believes that if he rephrases commonplace "mentalistic" expressions with terminology derived from the laboratory study of behavior, but deprived of whatever content this terminology has within this discipline, then he has achieved a scientific analysis of behavior. It would be hard to conceive of a more striking failure to comprehend even the rudiments of scientific thinking. The public may well be deceived, in view of the prestige of science and technology. It may even choose to be misled into agreeing that concern for freedom and dignity must be abandoned, perhaps out of fear and a sense of insecurity about the consequences of a serious concern for freedom and dignity. The tendencies in our society that lead toward submission to authoritarian rule may prepare individuals for a doctrine that can be interpreted as justifying it.

The problems that Skinner discusses -- it would be more proper to say "circumvents" -- are often real enough. In spite of his curious belief to the contrary, his libertarian and humanist opponents do not object to "design of a culture," that is, to creating social forms that will be more conducive to the satisfaction of human needs, though they differ from Skinner in their intuitive perception of what these needs truly are. They would not, or at least should not, oppose scientific inquiry or, where possible, its applications, though they will no doubt dismiss the travesty that Skinner presents.

Gay and Autistic

Much of my life I have enjoyed music by The Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode, George Michael, Elton John, Erasure, Bronksi Beat, Culture Club, Dead or Alive, Pete Shelley, and many many others. This is the music of my youth. However, there was a subplot in much of the music that expressed a gay liberation viewpoint in someways. I was totally unaware of it but others were. All I knew is that I liked the music and it spoke to me on an emotional level. Am I gay? I don't think so, as I have never had an attraction to another man. My romantic thoughts tend to revolve around women, both on an emotional and sexual level.

For many years, while attending Christ School, I was referred to as "That Faggot". My very "machismo" and AS brother told his now ex-wife that I was a "Faggot" because of the music I listened to. My brother very much believed I was "A Faggot" until I got married. My first girlfriend in college thought I was gay when she first met me because I was "so different". I wasn't overtly "flaming" or "feminine" in my ways. No she thought I was gay because of the way I dressed (very neat and immaculate which was really a learned defense mechanism from my Christ School days when I was bullied for the unsophisticated way I dressed).

I've been referred to as a Faggot and a Retard at various points in my life, both of which are epithets used to describe distinct minority groups. So I guess in some ways, I can understand what it is like to be marginalized by one's sexuality (even fearing physical harm from those that hold these views). There are certain members of the Autism Hub that are homophobic yet claim to be interested in promoting neurodiversity. Oh, arguments like homosexuality is an abomination in the "eye of God" is the way they justify their bigotry. From my experience, there is very little difference between being targeted based on sexuality and neurology. To be gay and autistic is a doubly heavy burden to bear. Many of my online friends I have made in the past 2 years have been gay and autistic. One of them simply retreated when he finally came to the conclusion that he was gay after his failed marriage.

I've often given thought as to whether I am bisexual or not. I had a roommate in college that was gay and his view was that the only true position one can take is to be bisexual. His view was that even gay people like himself could be attracted to the opposite sex, but not necessarily from an emotional stand point. I didn't understand this view at the time but as I age I can sort of understand it. I think I've progressed enough intellectually and emotionally to view sexuality as something other than a purely evolutionary drive. Love is really what people seek and for some people, the emotional love is only natural to them with the same sex.

It would be a lie for me to say that I have never fantasized about having sex with another man because I have, but only in an abstract notion and typically with a female in the picture. Does this mean I'm gay? I don't think so but I could be a closeted bisexual. But could I be attracted to another male outside of a sexual encounter? I don't think so as it hasn't happened. Emotionally, I am much more attracted to women and they don't have to have the same body concept as a man I might be attracted to sexually in my fantasies. Where is the line between heterosexuality and homosexuality? Is it the emotional bridge? If so, I'm clearly a heterosexual person. If not, I could easily be bisexual. However, I am not exclusively either I guess based on my own fantasies.

I also wonder how this public discussion of my views of sexuality will affect my personal online relationships. I've never spoken this candidly about sexuality before. There is all sorts of bigotry out there even from people that express progressive views. However, being true to my nature and thoughts is much more important to me personally than what someone might think about me.

There is much autistic people can learn from the Gay Rights movement. There is also much gay people can learn about the autistic human rights movement known as Neurodiversity. Both groups seek acceptance for who they are. This has been my private plea to gay men such as David Kirby and Graham Streeter. Both of these men are gay. But, being a member of a repressed minority doesn't mean you have any special empathy towards other groups. You can be gay and bigoted and straight and bigoted. Intolerance for differences in neurology is independent of race, sexual orientation, religion and even neurology.

While not gay myself, I do find much of gay "culture" speaks to me on an individual and spiritual level. So you can call me a "Faggot", I am neither ashamed of that label or trying to run from it. If Faggot is how you wish to categorize me, I'm ok with that.