Which one of these people is doing more damage to our image?

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I didn't call you paranoid or a conspiracy theorist directly. If you suspect that your thoughts on this might be considered over the top, paranoid or conspiracy theory sounding then maybe take a second look at them. I'm not talking about the people who are offended because Autism Speaks only shows the ads about low functioning children and it's all doom and gloom rather than show successful adults with autism and ask for monetary support to help fund programs and therapies to help more be as successful, I'm talking about people who say that Autism Speaks wants to kill off all autistics, and hates us all, and is evil and full of all kinds of nefarious ulterior motives rather than being somewhat misguided in it's media representation of autistics. If you fit into that category, then I consider you paranoid and a conspiracy theorist, and it only takes buying into one conspiracy theory to be considered a conspiracy theorist you know. They aren't bad people, I know several of them, they just have a big bee in their bonnets about a particular subject and refuse to consider any other viewpoint. If you resent my opinion, I honestly don't care. I certainly didn't post "<your name> is a paranoid conspiracy theorist!" I just said that those who spout that theory to be in that group. I have no problem agreeing to disagree, however isn't it a bit paranoid to take my statement and decide I'm talking about you and get resentful? Kind of like how people see the doom and gloom Autism Speaks commercials and decide that Autism Speaks must want them locked away or killed? I'm just saying.....

Plus, I've considered the viewpoints of those who feel that way about A.Speaks. After doing some reading and research, I discounted it as people taking something personally that obviously wasn't meant that way, but everybody's entitled to their opinion, and in the long run mine doesn't hurt you and yours doesn't hurt mine.


You are missing the implications of the word leper. It is not just a term used for a disease.[/quote]

I'm aware of what the word leper means in the vernacular, but that doesn't change the story of St Francis. The connotations of leper in the vernacular and leper in the particular usage is actually a good fit. People do treat many of us like lepers as a knee jerk reaction, and like leprosy, autism is thought of to be something very different than it is. Whats so wrong with that? Nobody's saying "They should be shunned I tell you, SHUNNED!" Something sounded like it was meant to be offensive so therefore it had to be, right? It doesn't matter what was actually meant and it doesn't matter that it makes sense and isn't offensive at all when you look it over and see it logically. This reminds me of the controversy several years ago about the man who used the word "niggardly" in a speech. It sounds like it's related to that other n word that is contained in it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with anything except being cheap and a big ole tightwad. It's nothing at all to do with race, but it sounds like might and should, so it's best to get offended and not take any chances. Same with the use of the word leper in a discussion of autism. It can mean outcast, so rather than comparing the fact that many of us are outcasts, it must be taken as meaning we deserve to be outcasts because somebody, somewhere, sometimes in the past said that we should be.

I honestly think they do go overboard with the doom crying, but that's very different than starting up an underground eugenics program. Then again, maybe it's part of the New World Order, and if I remember correctly the Shriners do something or other for autistic children don't they, and Shriners are Freemasons..........

The government can take your house if they want to, but they have to pay you for it. It's called imminent domain. They usually just force you to sell to them because they are putting a road or something through there, and if you don't willingly sell they send you a check and then the cops come and remove you physically from your house and they tear it down.

I went to school with a girl whose Daddy believed the moon landing wasn't real and he taught all eight of his kids that. None of them believed in it and one of those kids was in my class and she would argue with the teachers about it. All those kids did.

My oldest son believes 9/11 was an inside job. Both my sons will watch crazy documentaries on tv and believe them because they sound good. Those boys are too gullible! They are intelligent, normal boys, but will believe anything like that if it sounds good enough.

I have a theory about time travel. I don't believe it will ever be possible because if it ever becomes real then somebody, somewhere will come back in time and spill the beans about it. That hasn't happened yet, so it will never happen. That may not make a lot of sense, but that's what I believe.

I also don't believe in aliens at all. I know I'm in the minority but I don't. I believe in vampires, ghosts, demons, werewolves, magic, spells, elves, faries, gnomes, etc etc etc, but I do not believe in space aliens. Or zombies. As long as I don't base any major life decisions on the existence of any of those, I don't think my belief in them is hurting anything

Living out in the country like I do, I've come across some crazy conspiracy theories that folks have. It's amazing the things they can link together like that. One boy who writes for our paper is paranoid as hell about everything. Everything has a motive and it's usually pure evil. If it's not the Republicans that are out to get him, it's the Tea Party or it's the Militia or it's the Bible Methodists, or it's the Masons or the Antichrist or whatever he's been reading about recently. This makes for some pretty unintentionally hilarious op-ed columns from him. I honestly thought about talking to the editor and asking him to give me a shot at his job instead, but I don't want to deprive myself and others the chance to laugh at him weekly. I know him personally and he's an ass, so it's ok to laugh at him. He's pompous as hell and a huge know it all. It wouldn't be as funny if he wasn't proven wrong almost every time it's possible for him to be, yet he still goes around spouting this and that and doing "investigative journalism" and writing other articles for our town's paper where he tries to uncover this or that. Half the people in town take his word as gospel and the other half are busy laughing at him. He's the older brother of my oldest son's first girlfriend, who is the girl whose hair I did and her bridesmaids hair for her wedding a couple years ago when she married the guy who lives two blocks from here who used to throw sandwiches from his roof at people riding by on bicycles and beaned my son in the head with one a week after we moved down here. (Small town). I don't much like him. Most people don't.

If you have Netflix, look through some of the documentaries on there. You'll find more crazy than you can shake a stick at.

Yes you've been quite clear on this.
I won't go into the implications of genetic research as you wont accept what I see as obvious. But frankly, right now I wish my Mom had had access to my genetic information before I was born, so I could have been aborted.

Oh, Im sure that people will abort autistic kids if and when a test comes out to identify them. I also agree that Autism Speaks could do a lot to help prevent some of the abortions by showing a more positive side of adults with autism who aren't dependent for their entire lives or who at least are able to communicate and function well within the family. It happened with Down Syndrome, it happened with Spina Bifita, it happens with anything that can be considered a birth defect. Other things need to be researched as well as just a prenatal test for autism. There need to be more and better therapies and meds and lots of things to help use do better in life. I'm very aware of the implications of genetic research, but thats true for not just autism, it's true for everything that could be undesirable. Hell, for all we know they may one day be able to tell if a baby is going to have ADHD or be nearsighted, or an one of a million different things that a parent may choose to abort for. I don't agree with doing that, but it's a possibility. That doesn't mean we shouldn't learn how to test for these. There is a lot of good that can come of knowing what to expect with your child as well, even if you don't abort.

As for my opinion of paranoia and conspiracy, so what? I'm one person, who you don't really know and probably will never meet in person, who has no real effect on you or your life, so why would my opinion of your point of view about this mean anything to you? My opinion doesn't mean squat. It's also only my opinion of your opinion about Autism Speaks, not about you as a person. What's made you decide now that you wish your mother had known you'd have AS and aborted you? If autism isn't a problem and something that's hard to deal with then why would you want to be aborted because of it? Aren't the people who are up in arms over Autism Speaks wanting autism to be seen as a positive and as a gift and not a disorder or disease or something wrong? If thats the case, why suddenly do you wish to have been aborted for it? I certainly hope you didn't say that because of my opinion about your opinion. Everyone has a right to their own feelings, but that's going way overboard if that was the reason and it would kind of confirm what I had said. There's always going to be somebody out there who strongly disagrees with you (or me or anybody else for that matter) and if you can't deal with dissenting opinions, then it's going to be very difficult to ever debate an issue. While I may come across as blunt and even rude sometimes, I'm usually not trying to insult, and I wasn't trying to insult you in the previous posts.

Oddly enough, I was just flipping through Netflix looking for something else to watch now that Amazon has decided to be crappy and stop working well on the tv, and I found a documentary called "Homo Sapiens 1900" and it's about a eugenics program. I'm watching it now, since it seems to be somewhat related to an online conversation I'm having. I'll see what all they talk about. It was made in 2000. I'll post and let ya'll all know how it was after it's finished. So far it's really slow and just has a lot of terrible background music.

OMG, we agree.


Not because of my autism, but because I just can't seem to find a place in the world. If autism were more widely understood, I think I could be okay. Maybe 100 years from now we may be better accepted, or possibly we won't exist at all. But right now, I'm sick of being an outsider.

If it doesn't sound like 'mild autism' then that's a good thing. All that we have to put up with and deal with, is anything but mild. The APA are idiots for jamming the two together and calling one "mild", some people just don't make wise decisions. I suppose Aspie IS a cutsie nickname.

It comes from Hans' last name, which is also where the word "Asperger's" is derived.

"Able autistic individuals can rise to eminent positions and perform with such outstanding success that one may even conclude that only such people are capable of certain achievements … Their unswerving determination and penetrating intellectual powers, part of their spontaneous and original mental activity, their narrowness and single-mindedness, as manifested in their special interests, can be immensely valuable and can lead to outstanding achievements in their chosen areas."
-- Hans Asperger (1944)

It's already a terrible loss that such potential is often squandered. To genetically get rid of it, would be one hell of a deathblow to the human species.

Oh, professionally, not long after the start of school. Are you self diagnosed?

Also, people that don't think Speaks is abhorrent and that detractors are a bunch of conspiracy theorists, are willfully ignorant at this point.

AND THAT'S just another conspiracy theory waiting to start.

Dude, or dudette, or whomever you are, I PAY NO ATTENTION TO CONSPIRACY THEORIES, including the silly one about Autism Speaks being a hate group against Autistic folks. And that's as silly as it gets considering that most of the folks who started AUTISM SPEAKS, are PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN WHO ARE INCREDIBLY IN LOVE WITH THEIR CHILDREN.

COMMON sense could rule here, IT REALLY could.

BUT The FACT of the matter is according to the New England Journal of Medicine there is a minority demographic in the general population that is RIPE TO BELIEVE, IN almost any conspiracy theory that comes their way.

And YES, THIS most definitely includes SOME online so-called autistic folks, as has been proven over and over ad-nauseam here and almost everywhere else online, at LEAST in SOME cases.

I UNDERSTAND the nature of the beast and used it to my advantage as a mindless passtime to argue against conspiracy theorists, some of whom who are LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO bring the light of facts to.

It was a great device to escape pain, and thank GOD I DO not have to live in that Hamster Wheel of pain anymore.

I hope the same for others but again, like the New England Journal of Medicine, I understand the nature of the conspiracy leaning believing folks in THAT demographic of the general public.

This is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENT THAN BELIEVING that vaccines are the cause of ALL Autism, and vaccines in general are some kind of frigging government conspiracy to thin the herd out.

Folks like Alex Jones thrive on THAT demographic to the TUNE of millions of dollars in revenue, as the target audience is always READY TO BITE HIS BAIT of government conspiracy theories.

Other than that, THAT demographic is of sociological and anthropological interest to me, per why I am even taking the time to address the issue here.

THE excuses are still interesting to me but the essence of the issue of conflict REMAINS THE SAME, AGAIN, ad-nauseam, to me at least.

And to be crystal CLEAR, I AM NOT DIRECTING ANY OF THIS AT you personally.

I am only addressing the OP, in general.

Yes they can take your house but my ex made it out to be if the gov decided he wanted it so he walks up to your door and tells you to leave and hands you a box and tells you you have an hour to get your stuff in it and get out. I knew it didn't work like that. He also believed they can just come and take your stuff if they want to. Well if it isn't yours like if its rented or if you bought it with credit cards, they can come and take it to repossess it (or is that only on TV when someone goes bankrupt so a bunch of people go in their home and take their stuff they have to give back?). If you are a hoarder and you have so much stuff you can't even get around in your own home, yeah people come and clean it out for you.

If your home is repossessed or foreclosed or if there was going to be a new high way put in or road widened, yes they give you a notice and give you time to move out and they buy your house from you, especially if the whole town gets unsafe which has happened to two places I know (Pitcher, OK and Centralia, PA) and they buy your home and you move.

I am sure there was more to the story when my ex told me how it happened to someone he knew and he didn't know all the details. I just found it unbelievable but he seemed to twist things he saw and heard so he could have been doing that.

Moromillias, I am professionally diagnosed, when I was well into middle age. Thats where I learned about Aspergers. I did quite a bit of research afterwards.

I know where the name Asperger's Syndrome comes from, I asked where Aspergian came from. That's one of the nicknames for it, I suppose.

I am also certainly not willfully ignorant and actually not ignorant at all, simply because I refuse to jump on the hurt feelings, take everything personally and blow it all up out of proportion because it's all a secret Nazi eugenics program bandwagon.

I knew eventually someone would not be able to resist bringing that up yet again. Elliot Rodgers was not diagnosed with aspergers syndrome and no substantial proof he had it for one. Also how do you figure people with schizophrenia damage the image of autistics? why do I get the feeling the answer to that will be filled with stigmatizing generalizations about people with schizophrenia.

To consider people speaking out against Speaks, a conspiracy, you have to ignore everything that Autism Speaks does, and has done, meaning that they're willfully ignorant. Then, straw man everything detractors say, meaning that they're dishonest.

Putting respectable authors like John Elder Robison in the same basket as Alex Jones, and even going as far as implying detractors aren't really AS, wow, that's just messed up. Because clearly, in your mind, anyone that doesn't like the bigotry of Speaks isn't a true AS person, hilarious.

That's right, it's a parents group, that love their kids so much they go to extreme lengths to exorcise the evil demon that is Autism. Oh, what such loving and caring bigots they are.

It is by definition a hate group, to call it anything else, you have to either A) Change the definition of "hate group". or B) Ignore all their ideas, their record, and their activities entirely.

Others have posted more than enough just here in this thread alone, on Autism Speaks, to show how abhorrent they are, to ignore all of it, you do have to be willfully ignorant.

The government can kick you out of your house and take it, I believe it is called imminent domain, if they claim to 'need' the land for something else. Though there would be warning, but he's not totally off track to believe that just seems a bit mis-informed about the process....Also though you think there never are assassinations like that? I imagine you don't typically hear about them but I'd think its more likely than not it occurs it could explain some disappearances especially in a nation where cops murder people. Though if your ex figured they where coming for him specifically just because for instance that would be leaning more towards delusional.

I'm not going to defend the "conspiracy theory" side. Actually, reading into this, I'd be in agreement. The idea that an organization is out there, looking to commit an autistic genocide, is quite ridiculous. Even "searching for a cure" isn't autistic genocide per se.

Regardless though, I do understand the paranoia. Most of the funds that Autism Speaks spends is on more marketing, and then research, rather than actually increasing the welfare of autistic people. Why would I support an organization that proclaims to rep all autistic people if they're not even helping me? From a rational standpoint it's incredibly jarring.

Worse, as many have already pointed out, their marketing always seems to want to take a s**t over autism. OliveOilMom pointed out that such marketing is a necessary evil, but if you're going to cover all autistic people, why are you only going over the negative side? How about showing relatively well-to-do children that nonetheless struggle and need help coping in life? How about successful autistic people, and encouraging to put more building blocks in place? No, none of that. Instead, they'll keep putting labels that autism is somehow all bad.

Again, even if Autism Speaks isn't a hate group, their activities and rhetoric is nonetheless unsettling. Given that many autistic people feel what it's like to be an outsider enough, this doesn't re-assure anyone.

Certainly doesn't hurt anyone but you honestly think earth is the only planet in the entire universe with any kind of life? Too me that just seems far fetched beings the universe is so large.

Stephen Hawking said it's absurd to think there is no other life in the universe.