quote:

Originally posted by Extremely Fluffy Fluffy Thing:

quote:

Originally posted by strike:

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:
*strums banjo*

daddaling ding ding ding ding ding ding

name that tune in seven ?

We probably could if you were in tune.

give you a quote from the movie

"i bet you can squeal like a pig, weeeeeeeee"

To be fair, I think Deej is being misunderstood.

PC has been useful and still can be.
We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

banjo?

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:
banjo?

I'm hoping Russell doesn't appear!

I'll need deliverance.

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:
banjo?

I'm hoping Russell doesn't appear!

I'll need deliverance.

he'll pluck your G string..

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:
banjo?

I'm hoping Russell doesn't appear!

I'll need deliverance.

he'll pluck your G string..

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:
banjo?

I'm hoping Russell doesn't appear!

I'll need deliverance.

da da ding ding ding

quote:

Originally posted by strike:

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:

quote:

Originally posted by tupps:
banjo?

I'm hoping Russell doesn't appear!

I'll need deliverance.

da da ding ding ding

*** runs for the canoe ***

Shouldn't that be 'dada dada dada ding ding ding' ?

quote:

Originally posted by Extremely Fluffy Fluffy Thing:
Shouldn't that be 'dada dada dada ding ding ding' ?

that's way out of tune efft

Simon would throw you off the show in the first minute

Where did Deej's post go?

Stop playing those bliddy banjos!

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:
Quite possibly. At least about her disabilities anyway.

Ta for replying Dan.

I still think that's pretty nuts and I'm trying hard to get my head round that. You can't knowuntil you've walked in a man's shoes (or not, you know what I mean).

quote:

Do you know what "it's like herding cats" means?

Not a phrase I've come across before,but possibly something spiky and impossible and dangerous? Tell me, cos I'd like to know what it is

quote:

'Arguments from authority' have their place but my point was nothing to do what it's like to be disabled in a particular way. It was about switching to see what people with disabilities can do rather than simply seeing that as disabled and therefore seeing what they can't do.

OK, I'm listening...

quote:

Look:

"When I was a kid, people used to call people in wheelchairs 'handicapped' probably without thinking about it and almost certainly without malice.

Yes, I remember that too...

quote:

Of course, wheelchair users are handicapped when presented with a set of stairs. They're probably no more handicapped than me though when sat at a desk using a computer.

I see what you're getting at, but I still think that you're being a bit naive. Many wheelchair users will have a bit more than a touch of RSI or whatever. A back problem can be a bugger when it comes to getting comfortable, there may be limited upper body mobility, you just don't know how it feels, only the individual does.

quote:

Yet I was defined by being normal and they were defined as being handicapped. That's not Orwellian newspeak to discourage people from seeing wheelchair users as 'the handicapped' and encouraging people to see beyond the wheelchair to what they are actually able to do. Negative to positive, you see."

No problem at all with that and quite agree, I don't think anyone would. It doesn't require lessons from anyone...it's common sense? To me, anyway.

quote:

I don't mind tangents but I'm not being everyone's Straw Man for their own issues. How does I'm In A Wheelchair And I know More About Being In A Wheelchair More Than You have any impact on my quoted point?

I'm not making you anything, but you have been a strong and frequent contributor to the thread, coming from a very definite viewpoint. Of course we're going to end up having a debate?

And I've enjoyed disagreeing with (some) of your opinions...longest chat I've had on here in a while. Keep stringing them sentences together

ahhh forum harmony through discord.. is this where we all get nekkid and pluck Blizzie's G string..

quote:

Originally posted by *BB*:
Deej, I really would like you to read both my posts again. You seem to be missing what I said.

I've read all of them again now, after a long search. You can go through all of mine.

*puts aluminium pants on*

kinky..

So, we're all agreed then?

Marcus was a twunk, but he had every right to complain about the other twunts?

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:
So, we're all agreed then?

Marcus was a twunk, but he had every right to complain about the other twunts?

no

quote:

Originally posted by strike:

quote:

Originally posted by Blizzie:
So, we're all agreed then?

Marcus was a twunk, but he had every right to complain about the other twunts?

no

ive only been gone for five minutes and
the thread's fell apart......

quote:

Originally posted by fracas:
I see what you're getting at, but I still think that you're being a bit naive. Many wheelchair users will have a bit more than a touch of RSI or whatever. A back problem can be a bugger when it comes to getting comfortable, there may be limited upper body mobility, you just don't know how it feels, only the individual does.

quote:

Yet I was defined by being normal and they were defined as being handicapped. That's not Orwellian newspeak to discourage people from seeing wheelchair users as 'the handicapped' and encouraging people to see beyond the wheelchair to what they are actually able to do. Negative to positive, you see."

No problem at all with that and quite agree, I don't think anyone would. It doesn't require lessons from anyone...it's common sense? To me, anyway.

Imagine herding cats. Glance away and they're off in every direction.

As for being naive, I just can't seem to get you off the idea that my simple, deliberately simple, point misunderstands the nature of being in a wheelchair. It's a simple point about classifications and labels and how they change the way we see things, not whether someone might have one leg not working and another might have both legs not working. Whether someone has RSI or not, or how someone feels after working for 2 hours doing data entry, is almost completely irrelevant to that point. It's not irrelevant to a point about involving people with disabilities in making legislation or creating labels or determining work capabilities, but that's not the point to hand.

The other point about not requiring lessons from anyone: you'd think that wheelchair access to buildings and shops would be a common sense thing to provide if you're constructing a shop or a workplace. Afterall, people in wheelchairs would be excluded from work, shopping, and other things people take for granted if not. Especially as being unable to get into a building or up a flight of steps to your desk to be able to do work that you may be quite capable of doing restricts your life chances. Also, you'd think that strangers encountering someone in a wheelchair with a helper pushing it would naturally talk to the person in the wheelchair. It always doesn't happen like that, does it? And it's a pretty recent thing to require wheelchair access to shops and other buildings and retro-fitting that has caused all sorts of problems because they weren't designed that way in the first place. I wonder why not?

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:


As for being naive, I just can't seem to get you off the idea that my simple, deliberately simple, point misunderstands the nature of being in a wheelchair. It's a simple point about classifications and labels and how they change the way we see things, not whether someone might have one leg not working and another might have both legs not working. Whether someone has RSI or not, or how someone feels after working for 2 hours doing data entry, is almost completely irrelevant to that point.

I think you're stuck on this classifications and label thing. To come back to a post of yours that I quoted a coupla pages back. To me, it was an unintentionally scary post

quote:

It's not like Orwell's Newspeak at all. There isn't a move to limit the dictionary, or reduce the total number of words, or remove nuance by getting rid of synonyms and antomyms. Orwell simply understood the power of words and the theory behind changing the way people think about stuff by changing labels, and put it into a totalitarian backdrop.

So, it was bad in 1984, but it's entirely OK now? It is, if you think about it, a way to control thought. Open to abuse and open to question, rightly so.

quote:

The other thing about not requiring lessons from anyone: you'd think that wheelchair access to building and shops would be a common sense thing to provide if you're constructing a shop or a workplace. Afterall, people in wheelchairs would be excluded from work, shopping, and other things people take for granted if not. Especially as being unable to get into a building or up a flight of steps to your desk to be able to do work that you may be quite capable of doing restricts your life chances. Also, you'd think that strangers encountering someone in a wheelchair with a helper pushing it would naturally talk to the person in the wheelchair. It always doesn't happen like that, does it? And it's a pretty recent thing to require wheelchair access to shops and other buildings and retro-fitting that has caused all sorts of problems because they weren't designed that way in the first place. I wonder why not?

Over-wordy, but don't disagree. But I still knew that in the 70s. It was all plank power back then. Portable ramps!

Dan, I still feel you are selective in some of your replies and examples. You wouldn't let anyone else off that easy

quote:

Imagine herding cats. Glance away and they're off in every direction.

As for being naive, I just can't seem to get you off the idea that my simple, deliberately simple, point misunderstands the nature of being in a wheelchair. It's a simple point about classifications and labels and how they change the way we see things, not whether someone might have one leg not working and another might have both legs not working. Whether someone has RSI or not, or how someone feels after working for 2 hours doing data entry, is almost completely irrelevant to that point. It's not irrelevant to a point about involving people with disabilities in making legislation or creating labels or determining work capabilities, but that's not the point to hand.

The other point about not requiring lessons from anyone: you'd think that wheelchair access to buildings and shops would be a common sense thing to provide if you're constructing a shop or a workplace. Afterall, people in wheelchairs would be excluded from work, shopping, and other things people take for granted if not. Especially as being unable to get into a building or up a flight of steps to your desk to be able to do work that you may be quite capable of doing restricts your life chances. Also, you'd think that strangers encountering someone in a wheelchair with a helper pushing it would naturally talk to the person in the wheelchair. It always doesn't happen like that, does it? And it's a pretty recent thing to require wheelchair access to shops and other buildings and retro-fitting that has caused all sorts of problems because they weren't designed that way in the first place. I wonder why not?

---
I'm nice, really.

I know your post above wasn't in response to me, but I shall respond anyway.

All newly-built workplaces and all newly-built premises that are being built for public access require, by law, to be designed with FULL access for wheelchair users. Note the word "design". All proposed new builds have to have their plans put into the local authority before building commences. All planning departments will throw the plans out if they do not show FULL access for wheelchair users. This is the law.

It's not simply a case of having a ramp at the front entrance or at entrance level with the pavement. It goes far beyond this. If the building is to be more than one storey then lifts have to be installed. Corridors must be wide enough to be comfortably and safely used by someone in a wheelchair. Toilet facilities must include facilities for wheelchair users. All doors in the buildings must be wide enough to take a wheelchair comnfortably and safely. Fire escapes have to comply with this too. Workplace canteen facilities also. And all this is just for the wheelchair using population. There's other planning legislation that concerns deaf and visually challenged members of our society.

The problem is that most buildings have been around for longer than the new disability laws. Most have gone for the ramp at the main entrance and very little else. The same with public transport and taxi firms, not to mention the lack of dropped kerbs in towns and cities. Lip service if you're lucky. Even hospitals don't bother that much. The two hospitals I attend regularly do not have toilets suitable for disabled people and wheelchair users, and one hospital does not have a toilet suitable for a carer to be there with the disabled person if they are of the opposite sex.

This is why many disabled people and wheelchair users such as myself just stay at home. It's just too much hassle.

A couple of years or so ago, a government minister was talking about bringing in legislation to make builders take on board facilities for wheelchair users when building all new private houses, instead of people having to make expensive alterations and adaptations to their new home after they have purchased it. That seems to have been forgotten about.

Disabled people don't want to be put in a special box and for it to appear that they are being treated differently or, in some peoples eyes, being given preferrential treatment. We want to be the same as everyone else. All buildings should have full access for all! Parking bays should all be the same width as the current disabled bays. Everyone would benefit from this. People with prams and buggies, people with shopping trolleys, delivery men, people recovering fromn illness or accidents for instance. Elderly people, everyone!

Why should the disabled population be singled out? Everyone would benefit!

I have been a wheelchair user for over 10 years and only once has someone ignored me and talked over my head to my husband, and that was when I presented my appointment card to the receptionist of the breast clinic.

I think that was the point Dan was trying to make, to be fair *BB*. He is totally for access if you read back.

quote:

Originally posted by fracas:
I think that was the point Dan was trying to make, to be fair *BB*. He is totally for access if you read back.

Yes I realise this, but the point I'm trying to make is it shouldn't be a special issue. In fact, it shouldn't even be a talking point. It's not nice being different. It's not nice having the feeling that somehow we should feel priviledged that times have changed and everywhere is fully accessible because it's not the case and never will be. Oh, it's the one subject that makes me so angry and upset.

quote:

Originally posted by *BB*:

quote:

Originally posted by fracas:
I think that was the point Dan was trying to make, to be fair *BB*. He is totally for access if you read back.

Yes I realise this, but the point I'm trying to make is it shouldn't be a special issue. In fact, it shouldn't even be a talking point. It's not nice being different. It's not nice having the feeling that somehow we should feel priviledged that times have changed and everywhere is fully accessible because it's not the case and never will be. Oh, it's the one subject that makes me so angry and upset.

Course not, and I said that you can't know anything until you are in another man's shoes.

I said that I didn't think Dan understood how it felt to be disabled, but I think he's actually on the money with his attitude to access. Your testimony backs it up, and I think he's right* with what he says about it.

*Not everything on this thread though, don't get excited

I should really go to bed. This is what happens when you sleep until afternoon

quote:

Originally posted by fracas:
I should really go to bed. This is what happens when you sleep until afternoon

Goodnight fracas. xx

let me have another go at explaining what i meant by the pc / newspeak comparison, because i think it got a bit lost in translation before


newspeak was created to silence any challenge to the governing power, by removing from the language the words necessary to making that challenge.

political correctness can sometimes work to silence any attitude, value or belief which falls outside the boundaries of political correctness, by giving a negative subtext or connotation to the languge needed to express that attitude,value or belief - therefore ultimately silencing it.

for example: it's becoming very difficult to say "i'm proud to be british".
"i'm proud to be british" might mean just that, nothing more, nothing less. BUT political correctness has given that phrase so many sinister connotations that, these days, saying "i'm proud to be british" is tantamount to saying "i'm a racist, homophobic, witch-burning nazi f*ck". it's too problematic to try to express that belief, because the language needed to do so has become so tarnished by poltical correctness that it can barely be used without causing offence. so, people don't even bother to say it in the first place, and soon "i'm proud to be british" won't exist, and in its place will be resentment and frustration.
that's not progress, it's a poke in the eye for equality.



(i should mention that this doesn't mean i'm opposed to political correctness in it's ideological form, but that was just one example of how badly it can backfire )

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:
saying "i'm proud to be british" is tantamount to saying "i'm a racist, homophobic, witch-burning nazi f*ck"

Can't argue with that.

*runs*

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:
saying "i'm proud to be british" is tantamount to saying "i'm a racist, homophobic, witch-burning nazi f*ck"

Can't argue with that.

*runs*

see, you can learn a lot about yourself on this forum..........

But seriously, words have context and the context determines reactions to them. "I'm proud to be British" in the context of sporting success, for example, doesn't raise concerns as far as I know. Throw that into a discussion about immigration and people become sensitive to what it might mean and how it is being used in the argument.

I think that's inevitable and not really much to do with political correctness itself. Most people seem to accept that discrimination is wrong but there's a vagueness there because it's unjustificable discrimination that is wrong because it is not fair, where fair broadly means equal.

We're a multicultural and diverse society in the UK now. When people say "I'm proud to be British", what does it actually mean culturally or say about identity? No-one seems able to say. It means different things to different people . No-one owns it. Yet in forum discussions about immigration, it seems to me that there's a sense that people do own Britishness, and are proud of it, and others are interlopers and a threat.

In those situations, I personally start to question stuff because there's discrimination in that position and I want to know if people are aware of it and if it can be justified. That's not political correctness I'm using there, it's looking for consistency and following arguments through from our other shared values, such as a belief in equal treatment for similar attributes.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:
saying "i'm proud to be british" is tantamount to saying "i'm a racist, homophobic, witch-burning nazi f*ck"

Can't argue with that.

*runs*

*chases deej with a wet fish*

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:


political correctness can sometimes work to silence any attitude, value or belief which falls outside the boundaries of political correctness, by giving a negative subtext or connotation to the languge needed to express that attitude,value or belief - therefore ultimately silencing it.

I think it's more likely that people are silencing themselves because they don't like being challenged on their opinions, they are only happy to speak out when they perceive they are part of a majority who think in the same way as them.

Instead of blaming their cowardice for not having the backbone to speak out for what they really think and believe, they invent a mysterious and sinister "PC brigade" that is somehow stopping them from speaking...it's ludicrous

People who are proud of what they think and believe in it tend to speak out regardless..if people profess to be silenced, it always makes me wonder why they are ashamed/scared of speaking their minds

quote:

Originally posted by Rekaf:

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel J*:

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:
saying "i'm proud to be british" is tantamount to saying "i'm a racist, homophobic, witch-burning nazi f*ck"

Can't argue with that.
*runs*

see, you can learn a lot about yourself on this forum..........

You can! I'm part of an ilk, apparently. Of what is not entirely clear yet.

quote:

Originally posted by DanceSettee:

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:


political correctness can sometimes work to silence any attitude, value or belief which falls outside the boundaries of political correctness, by giving a negative subtext or connotation to the languge needed to express that attitude,value or belief - therefore ultimately silencing it.

I think it's more likely that people are silencing themselves because they don't like being challenged on their opinions, they are only happy to speak out when they perceive they are part of a majority who think in the same way as them.

Instead of blaming their cowardice for not having the backbone to speak out for what they really think and believe, they invent a mysterious and sinister "PC brigade" that is somehow stopping them from speaking...it's ludicrous

People who are proud of what they think and believe in it tend to speak out regardless..if people profess to be silenced, it always makes me wonder why they are ashamed/scared of speaking their minds

no, i have to disagree - i've seen people try to speak out using the above example many times(myself included), and they are always shot down in flames and accused of closet racism etc, and in the end it just becomes a big mess. it's not worth bothering usually

quote:

Originally posted by DanceSettee:
I think it's more likely that people are silencing themselves because they don't like being challenged on their opinions, they are only happy to speak out when they perceive they are part of a majority who think in the same way as them.

Instead of blaming their cowardice for not having the backbone to speak out for what they really think and believe, they invent a mysterious and sinister "PC brigade" that is somehow stopping them from speaking...it's ludicrous

People who are proud of what they think and believe in it tend to speak out regardless..if people profess to be silenced, it always makes me wonder why they are ashamed/scared of speaking their minds

I like all that and I see what's in the first paragraph quite often. When I lived in County Durham, I heard blatant and unashamed racism spoken openly in pubs, and regularly. Opened my eyes, for sure.

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:



no, i have to disagree - i've seen people try to speak out using the above example many times(myself included), and they are always shot down in flames and accused of closet racism etc, and in the end it just becomes a big mess. it's not worth bothering usually

Well that is my point......it's YOU deciding it's not worth bothering with....don't blame the "PC brigade" for your lack of conviction in arguing your point.

quote:

Originally posted by DanceSettee:

quote:

Originally posted by vodka jellyfish:



no, i have to disagree - i've seen people try to speak out using the above example many times(myself included), and they are always shot down in flames and accused of closet racism etc, and in the end it just becomes a big mess. it's not worth bothering usually

Well that is my point......it's YOU deciding it's not worth bothering with....don't blame the "PC brigade" for your lack of conviction in arguing your point.

there's a limit to how many times you can bang your head against a brick wall, when people keep twisting your words