[Blindtlk] Rights and responsibilities

[T. Joseph Carter]

Gary,

The thing to remember when speaking to your congress-critter is that we
have already defined that there are boundaries to a person's rights, and
that with personal rights come personal responsibilities to which we must
all be held accountable.

For example, a retailer has the right to refuse service to a customer if
the customer is being obnoxious, but not to refuse service to a person who
has a different skin color.  Having a disability is much the same.

These responsibilities extend to you as well.  If you are knocking things
over because you aren't using your cane properly or are failing to control
your guide dog, you can be asked to leave.  Hopefully we'll have few such
cases where that sort of thing is warranted, but we know that blind people
are as varied as sighted people.  That's not always a good thing.

Joseph

On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 01:18:01PM -0600, Gary Wunder wrote:
> Hi Dewey. I am not in the least offended by your opinion but would like to 
> offer a few observations here. First of all, a legislator told me a long 
> time ago that you never give anyone anything for free. I was asking how 
> anyone could oppose our Model White Cane Law barring discrimination against 
> the blind, and what he said was revealing - Paraphrased he said that it 
> doesn't matter how motherhood and apple pie your issue may be, and I 
> certainly don't think the blind should be discriminated against - so *I'm 
> supporting your bill - but remember that in passing it we are taking away 
> some rights - the right of someone to say I don't want your dog here, the 
> right of someone to say I don't want to look at blind people or to hear the 
> tapping of your canes. When we passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that was 
> the right thing to do, but we were taking away rights which some had in 
> order to give them to others. I can't give you something out of thin air - 
> to give it to you I must take it from someone else, whether or not they 
> should ever have had it in the first place
> 
> All of this is to say that if you give me the right to live and breathe, 
> something blind people haven't always had given that historically in some 
> societies we were drown at birth, then there are certain obligations I have 
> to see that I can contribute as much to society as possible. If I don't tell 
> the world about the menace of quiet cars and how dangerous they are for the 
> blind, who should? If I don't tell America when programs that lead to 
> employment won't work with screen readers, then who should? If I am not 
> willing to be an advocate and ask with firmness and reason, then maybe 
> society made the wrong decision in providing an education and 
> rehabilitation.
> 
> Now I like your idea about giving my business to people who want it, but for 
> all the talk about competition, look at the number of large corporations 
> which have become central to our shopping experience. If Wal-Mart isn't 
> accessible, whether physically or online, how much shopping opportunity is 
> off limits to the blind. The same is true for Target and Amazon. How many 
> cellular providers are there? How many cable companies? It just isn't as 
> simple as saying that the market will take care of things because from the 
> perspective of the market our numbers are very small.
> 
> I think there is always this balance we must have between the carrot and the 
> stick. We should not drop foolish threats for some of the corporations we 
> must change have far more money and legal staff than we can ever hope to 
> hire. Still, if we don't at least have the potential to bring consequences, 
> whether through publicity or economics, then why should anyone listen to us. 
> So we seek balance - making the need clear, offering to help fix the 
> problems we identify, and then, always holding as an option, the fight we'd 
> like to avoid.
> 
> Warmest regards, and please share what you think without fear we will react 
> against you. The discussion of ideas is central to everything we do.
> 
> Gary