More bad press for aspies

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My comment made it quite clear that I can "see" the difference. That has nothing to do with my argument, the person I was responding to claimed that it doesn't fall under free speech since it is "mocking and harassing", and I pointed out that political protests can also be considered "mocking and harassing", therefore by their own argument we should not be allowed to protest.

Recently in britain a mother was cleared of murder of her autistic son, because it had caused her so much suffering, and she had struggled for 11 years to care for him. So it seems its ok for NTs to kill autistic's, but if autistics say as much as a word, well chuck em in jail.

People have been bullied so much online they have taken their lives.
Now I too would just ignore them but not everyone can. Some people go online and get emotionally involved and when something negative happens like some bored kid telling someone to get raped - well, it can damage them.

Whether the troll had AS or not is no excuse.There's nothing in the diagnostic criteria about being an a**hole. Being abrupt and not recognising emotions isn't the same as harassing people.

As for the protesting thing...come on. The only protests that should be illegal are anti-gay protests at servicemen's funerals.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... leach.html

You mean this article?
The mother wanted to kill herself along with her son (I'm guessing out of guilt because she wasn't able to raise an autistic child very well), but changes her mind at the last minute. And I don't think she's an NT, she seems to suffer at least one mental illness.

Tis right square peg

Bad press concerning aspies is better than no press whatsoever.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for Sean Duffy, but it's worth noting that one of the memorial sites he defaced was to a teenage girl who committed suicide because she was sent hurtful anonymous messages from a group of girls at her school. Example:
‘You’re a f***ing slut hiding under all your make-up. You think you’re pretty and that all the guys like you. Start acting nice to people or you will lose everyone.’

I'm not sure if this lead to any prosections, even though it lead to her suicide. Sean Duffy hurt her relatives, but someone else effectively killed her. Which was worse I wonder?

Unless you stick another dog in there that physically assaults them and maybe even rapes them it's not the same.

If I ever had to be in jail or prison I'd never survive unless I could just be in solitary the whole time. I'd prefer being in solitary.

I agree that what they did was wrong but I've seen lots of stuff that bad or worse online and it seems like everyone just gets away with it.

why is it everyone allows these people to represent the AS community? I mean sure it is a bit obnoxious when AS is thrown around a lot in that manner but at the same time even if that jerk did have AS its not as though he represents the majority of people with AS.

"The court heard that Duffy has Asperger's syndrome and lived a "miserable existence" drinking alcohol alone at his home in Reading."

^ that doesn't sound right.

In alot of ways, I agree with this. The world wasn't built for Aspies, and I don't think there are many here, or many elsewhere, that have not had some degree of difficulty as a result (Up to and including a distinct lack of many, if any, Happy or Cheery experiences, after all, if someone grows up in an abusive family, adding Asperger's to it isn't going to improve anything.....). Some people seem to want the world to think that Aspie's are all perfectly capable of dealing with the real world with little involvement from anyone else, and thats probably true if either their parents recognized a difference and treated the child responsively as a result, or the kid figured it out early enough and was able to view his/her differences objectively early enough. But I believe many here would attest that this does not always happen. Maybe once the NT world has convinced itself of just how prevalent an issue this is, we can start figuring out how many Aspie's have in fact "Fallen through the cracks".....


Who said he was representing anything (Except for his own actions, in front of a judge)? Your last sentence says it all. He wasn't, nor did anyone accuse him of such. The only person I can think of that would even come close to represent the AS community is Temple Grandin, and shes Autistic, rather then specifically Aspie. I think if Alex keeps pursuing his apparently personal campaign for raising Aspie Awareness, then he or someone from his group will probably eventually end up with that kind of public acceptance and recognition, but they're nowhere near there yet...... Suffice it to say that, until someone stands up and says "I represent the AS Community, please listen to what I have to say", in an indirect kind of way, the News Media will refrain of making any one person represent the entire community outright, but there will be this quiet undertone of "Oh, he had Aspergers, of course he was a screwball", because the news these days focus' on misfortune, including that incurred by people with Aspergers.

@anyone thats still wondering why he was Jailed for saying what he did:
I haven't read this thread in its entirety, so IDK if anyone else pointed this out, but this all occurred in the UK. The UK DOES NOT have a "Bill of Rights" the way the U.S. does. Instead of "Protecting the people" in their legal system the way the US does, they've wheedled down their authority through years of Royal Feudalism and later Parliamentary Socialism. I personally would trust the UK at current date to get a Fair Trail in the UK. However I would not trust that I wouldn't be jailed for anything they found to be "Against the common good" of their society, because they have no Laws (Or none that Im currently aware of, feel free to correct me) protecting me from their government. They do not have a guaranteed, unalienable, protected above all else up to and including one's own stupid abuse of it, right to free speech.

Aldran

I feel Twist already covered alot of this very well, but I couldn't help but respond to this. I feel its so one sided......

And not everyone's social problems are created equal..... It does about as much good to marginalize his as it would if I marginalized yours. Nor is it any good to say "His was worse" or "Mine was worse/better", because at the end of the day, social problems are social problems, and we all come from different circumstances. But to not understand that people have problems later in life as a result of their circumstances is to deny the fact that the majority of people are who they are today because of the experiences they had growing to the point they are now.....


This is essentially hypocrisy in my mind after you said what you did in the last thing I quoted from you..... Im sorry if thats more blunt then anyone else has been with you, but to say "We all have social problems, so What?" then to go on and say "Oh, well, Ive been bullyed too and I didn't do what he did"? How is that any kind of fair? Did you live his life? Did he live yours? I think not.....


This, I actually agree with, in so far that he needs help. After that, I am of Twist's mind, in that a Prison cell is going to do very little for him. How do you reflect upon the error of your ways if your life has been so isolated or miserable that nobody's even bothered to give you enough experience/information/advice to realize the problems that come from maliciously antagonizing those that have had egregious misfortune befall them? The fact that he did it in the first place would suggest he was ignorant of this in the first place, and though he might have some warnings, a warning will never replace, nor inspire the same response as, a major life experience, or even a heart to heart conversation from someone you trust....... If you insist upon further asking "How could anyone not know", then I simply ask you to think about your own life and remove any experience from it in which you might have gained such knowledge yourself. Just because most of society is blessed to have someone/thing teach them certain things, is not to take for granted that EVERYONE Does......

Aldran

It's a different culture with a different history and it's only natural that you'd see it in (as I read it) a negative light. I disagree strongly with your choice of words "Royal Feudalism" and "Parliamentary Socialism" and how that pertains to our rights (or lack of, whichever way you view it) and system of law for all sorts of reasons that I won't begin to go into here. There is always injustice, as one finds anywhere, but I think on the whole most of us here are reasonably happy with our system in the UK.

Anyway, I'm somewhat surprised this thread has revived after so many months; this is old news now.

Well, the specific incident is old news, but the debate about Freedom of Speech (the Constitution: our founding document) is eternal. There are always good reasons to abridge or limit it, but they all point at slippery slopes. I'm not even happy about the kiddie-porn laws, especially when they're written to be effective even if no particular child is involved in any way.

I don't know whether it's true, but I read some time ago, somewhere, that in ancient Rome, censorship was allowed for obscenity. Shortly after, it became considered "obscene" to criticize the Emperor.

Careful with the "our" founding document. It is your founding document. With regards to freedom of speech, there are naturally trade-offs when having absolute freedom of speech. Many citizens of the USA believe that the right to free speech trumps all, and therefore they have the superior or fairer system. Well fair play to them it is their (your) constitution, but many parts of the world have quite different legal and constitutional systems and we are generally quite content with them. I certainly don't feel like we're on a slippery slope to anywhere.