Given what happened in Rwanda 30 years ago, and given that we haven’t seen a repeat since then, I think Kagame is doing a good job. I’m not sure how I feel about him being in power for so long, but I also don’t think we’re in the best place to judge (the West) given how abysmally we failed Rwanda over the past 200 years.

Look what happened in Texas. No power due to capitalism nonsense, asked for federal assistance, got it, and continued to screw over their constituents because of capitalism nonsense. Same thing.

I was born in AB and moved away finally a decade ago. The willful ignorance and hatred of most of the white people living there towards anything that had a shred of “liberalism” finally became too much. It’s hard to care about people that just want to punish others. Smith could look at this and say, “Yes, this is it, this is now the catalyst for truly doing something about climate change” and the cowboys would vote her out and find someone else to support their hate.

It’s not about committing money to climate change. It’s about not committing money to oil, drilling, and fracking. It’s about not ignoring scientists and Indigenous people about best practices around fire stewardship. I mean, for crying out loud, how much money have oil companies made off of oil, and how much have they saved on not cleaning up their wells, just for example? The oil companies could step in and rebuild Jasper several times over, but they’re not going to, because it’s all about $$$, and the Smith govt isn’t interested in holding their feet to the fire because that’s their retirement plan (oil exec advisors).

Smh.

Let’s see some commitments to dealing with climate change first. It sounds heartless, but I’d rather not slap some bandages on a severed limb.

ABA, which the article suggests, is also inhumane.

Found it: comic

What’s the original?

And mods!

Yeah, no, “mom and pop landlords” can cash in by selling their secondary properties and giving others a chance to build equity. It’s not fair to get someone else to pay your mortgage, whether or not it’s an older property, inheritance, etc. Housing should never be an investment.

Neither my nationality (I’m not American) nor my politics (I’m not liberal) have anything to do with this. The fact that I’m disabled means that this is a matter near and dear to my heart, and I can indeed be worried about more than one thing at a time (the eroding of trans rights in my own country, for example). It’s not privileged to want to discuss the impact of language.

Have you heard the expression “white lies and black truths”? The intent behind “simply stating a fact” can indeed be hurtful.

But I really don’t think we’re going to run out of words. There’s at least a half million in English, and even counting obscure ableist terms, we’re talking about maybe thirty. Pretty small percentage.

But what’s great about this is finding new and creative ways to express yourself! “My points fell on rocky ground” — Biblical allusion. “They believed me as if I were Cassandra” - Greek. “My words fell on them like the sun under an umbrella.” If you want to keep the synecdoche, “Their ears weren’t ready to hear me”. There’s opportunities to be really creative and poetic if you’re interested in language as rhetoric!

Colloquially, nobody will blink at “They refused to listen” or “It was like I was talking to a tree”.

I’m autistic, and so I come off pretty blunt sometimes. I am really passionate about disability justice, but blasting people just hardens their position and makes them unwilling to listen. I’m glad that you weren’t offended! :)

If you’ve stopped using the r word because it’s offensive, that’s great! Really. Hopefully this discussion (like the linked article) will convince you that there are other terms commonly used that are just as offensive. If you can find alternatives to the r word, then you can also probably find alternatives to “deaf” and “stupid”, for example. Regardless, I appreciate that you’re trying!

Being mindful about language also forces us to be more critical of what we’re saying. Using an insult or slur is easy. Needing to avoid it means that we need to use our minds to engage with why we don’t like something, and that can be legitimately enlightening.

Language changes. We’ve stopped using some expressions because we’ve realized how hurtful they are — the n word, all sorts of slurs related to being LGBTQ2S+, etc. Here’s one more. Doubling down on this is exactly like arguing that you should still be allowed to use the n word because it’s been used as an “expression” for more than half a century.

I just don’t get it. If someone tells me that a word or phrase I’m using is offensive, I’m going to apologize and stop using it. Why is this so hard? Why would people double down on wanting to offend others?

Why is it hard for you to believe? If someone is telling you that the language you’re using is harmful, is your reaction really to say, basically, that you don’t care and you’re going to continue using it?

I think that people who are unvaxed shouldn’t get priority for transplants.

Even so, it’s not inappropriate to call out ableism in any topic. If somebody was racist, or sexist, or discriminatory in any other form, would you say, “Hey, we’re not talking about racism — stop hijacking the conversation”?

EDIT: For everyone else reading this: This is what people do when they feel uncomfortable with being called out. They deflect, refuse to admit they could be wrong, and stop engaging. That’s actually a fairly normal response. It’s hard to admit that, for example, ableist comments can be as harmful as racist comments. It’s okay to stop talking as long as one doesn’t stop thinking.

I am. Disabled people are. People who work with disabled people are. I understand that this topic doesn’t interest you, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fucking important for a lot of us.

Disability studies, disability justice, disability theory, crip theory… lots of keywords for you to start googling. The other poster isn’t wrong: prioritizing intelligence and health in a child is the theory behind the practice of eugenics. Yes, these are strong words… but they’re not wrong.