Bigotry!

[M. Cat]

I was on Amazon reading a book review my friend wrote, who has Asperger?s, and he was debating a guy who looked him up on the web and found out he has Asperger?s, after that he became a bigot. This so angers me, just because my friend has Asperger?s he can still debate, my friend even is going for his phD. This is what the bigot wrote:


John Grove says:

"Nick,
You have Asperger's Syndrome? That explains it........

Nick Peters and His Princess - Perissos: Resources for Responsible Living

My apologies to you man. It says that this, "most notably the ability to socialize with others, to communicate, and to use imagination."

1. Problems with social skills
2. Eccentric or repetitive behaviors
3. Unusual preoccupations or rituals
4. Communication difficulties
5. Limited range of interests
6. Coordination problems

What is Asperger's Syndrome? Symptoms, tests, Causes, Treatments

I will not bother you anymore.....Wish you all the best???

John Grove Says:

"The point is, that I have no intentions of debating people who have disabilities. Once I discovered Nick suffers from Asperger's, that explains much of his eccentric behavior and social ineptness and his ritualistic condescension and his limited range of interests past Aquinas. It make total sense. I suspected something like this due to the fact that he repeats things over and over, even when they have been refuted.

So rather than continue with him, I have no interest, it all makes sense now.?


"This was between me and him. And after pages and pages of seeing behavior that is indicative of something wrong (with his reason ability), now I know why (Or I suspect why), and I have no further interest in beating a man down.?

"And I tell a man I have no interest in debating him because of his disabilities (which were on display) and you go crazy. Sorry, but he has absolutely nothing intelligent to say, at all. His points are none points. His invincible ignorance is astounding. His confirmation bias is legendary. So, I have no interest in debating people like that, no matter how many Christians come to his defense because they know or like Nick.?

This guy, John Grove goes on and on about my friends disability and thinking because my friend Nick who goes by the name Apologia on Amazon, has Asperger?s thinks he doesn?t have anything intelligent to say and blames it on his disability. I find this bigotry disgusting! You can find the discussion here:

Amazon.com: ApologiaPhoenix's review of The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intell...


Anyway, I just needed to vent, so thank you for listening.

 

[IContainMultitudes]

I had a somewhat similar exchange with someone on the website for my hometown newspaper a few months back. I called out someone for making what I saw as extremely hateful comments about gay people where they seemed to be about an inch away from arguing that the Bible says that gay people should basically be put to death. After (somewhat foolishly) getting drawn into an argument with them, they pulled up one of my older posts in which I mentioned having AS in the comments to a story about a software company that employed people on the spectrum. They had pretty much the same reaction to that as the Amazon commenter you mentioned and they told me basically "Ok, now that I know about your condition, I'm not talking to you anymore. Take your meds and calm down." I did get a little bit of satisfaction from this person apparently getting banned from the site shortly thereafter for making those comments (but I decided that I should probably "ban" myself from the site and not read or post comments there anymore).

So...yeah, there's some bigots out there.

 

[M. Cat]

I had a somewhat similar exchange with someone on the website for my hometown newspaper a few months back. I called out someone for making what I saw as extremely hateful comments about gay people where they seemed to be about an inch away from arguing that the Bible says that gay people should basically be put to death. After (somewhat foolishly) getting drawn into an argument with them, they pulled up one of my older posts in which I mentioned having AS in the comments to a story about a software company that employed people on the spectrum. They had pretty much the same reaction to that as the Amazon commenter you mentioned and they told me basically "Ok, now that I know about your condition, I'm not talking to you anymore. Take your meds and calm down." I did get a little bit of satisfaction from this person apparently getting banned from the site shortly thereafter for making those comments (but I decided that I should probably "ban" myself from the site and not read or post comments there anymore).

So...yeah, there's some bigots out there.

Hi IContainMultitudes ,
Thank you for your comments. What?s sad is that you shouldn?t have to not read or post there, we all have the right to read and post where we want, it?s the bigots that should be banned. I hate to think of what would happen if people like this were in control of our lives, another Holocaust. Sad?

 

[Serendipity]

Hi IContainMultitudes ,
Thank you for your comments. What’s sad is that you shouldn’t have to not read or post there, we all have the right to read and post where we want, it’s the bigots that should be banned. I hate to think of what would happen if people like this were in control of our lives, another Holocaust. Sad…

So if I said right here and now that I don't agree with the gay lifestyle, that would immediately ban me? What happened to my freedom of speech? Hmm?

 

[Bay]

So if I said right here and now that I don't agree with the gay lifestyle, that would immediately ban me? What happened to my freedom of speech? Hmm?

It's not a "lifestyle," it's a life, just like anybody's.

 

[smith2267]

Your freedom of speech does not obligate anyone to provide you a forum to speak on.

 

[IContainMultitudes]

So if I said right here and now that I don't agree with the gay lifestyle, that would immediately ban me? What happened to my freedom of speech? Hmm?

Nobody said a word about banning you.

 

[HelloDizzy]

This is a forum, not a country, and if it were created to be so, it could very well ban anyone who exercised unwanted "freedom of speech." This isn't even an exclusively American forum.
Just pointing out the logistics here.
Anyhow, we have a mixture of people on this forum, most of which are accepting of how gay people live, and quite a few who do not agree with it, and I've yet to see anyone banned for it. Everyone gets along.

Dizzy.

 

[M. Cat]

So if I said right here and now that I don't agree with the gay lifestyle, that would immediately ban me? What happened to my freedom of speech? Hmm?

Who said anything about banning you if you disagreed with the gay lifestyle? If you were verbally abusive about it or refused to talk to someone who was gay then I think you would have a problem in your personal life but it wouldn?t get you banned, well if you were verbally abusive I?m sure you would get banned . My OP was about a guy when he was debating my friend who has Asperger?s he stopped the debate because he said that Aspies, and I quote:
"The point is, that I have no intentions of debating people who have disabilities. Once I discovered Nick suffers from Asperger?s, that explains much of his eccentric behavior and social ineptness?
Now, yes this person, John Grove has the right to post his feelings but this is blatant bigotry, and bigotry should not be tolerated. Look at his words again, ?I have no intentions of debating people who have disabilities.? He could just as easily have said, ?I have no intentions of HIRING people with disabilities?.

 

[Gomendosi]

I don’t think it is bigotry, I think it is something more than that.

One day I realised something important, if you argue with somebody in real life you can see them and can get an idea of wether the discussion is real or not, but if you argue on the internet you could be going up against a group of people or somebody who is whacking off every time you post a comeback (pardon the pun), you could be having a heated debate about thrush with a little kid or an all out argument about Pokemon with a professor… so even if you win, did you really… or did they just get up to walk the dog or simply lose interest or achieve sexual satisfaction, and you’re left there now, upset.

You are sitting there, all hot and bothered because you let this person you’ve never met, get under your skin, you open up a dialogue with them and they wont see your side or accept your reasoning so things become heated and you eventually end up punching your budgie or spitting at the monitor or yelling at the wife or whatever, maybe you get in the car and go for a drive really fast or head out the back to the boxing bag, clearly not the actions of a winner.

The point is that arguing on the internet is a waste of your valuable time and energy so just move on, who cares what they say, ignore them and they will go away, if they don’t then you can sit there in your nice comfy chair and laugh as they try to engage you because you have taken away their power.

Maybe you could just stop going to that site or log in under a different name or join a similar site, or better yet, turn off the computer and rejoin the real world? Tell your friend the same thing, tell everybody you know and maybe in time, even internet bullying might stop? No, it won’t, because everybody argues and everybody wants to be heard and everybody thinks their opinion is valid.

Is your friend lying in a hospital bed on a respirator fighting for his life since the argument took place? No, then maybe he has other more important things to worry about than what some lowlife [with no life] on the internet says or doesn’t say. When it happens to me I just picture some morbidly obese, wizened old lady, surrounded by hoards of scrawny cats, scratching her bed sores and eating special ordered 5 kilo bags of Doritos, picture your opponent like that, now, do you really need to be upset that she said she didn’t want to argue with an Aspie. Anyway, it’s not like a mob will come round your house and lynch you because you let somebody else have the last word, it might even make them happy… for once in their miserable little lives.

We place too much importance on what happens online and it is affecting society as a whole, we cluster here baffled about how to integrate into the world with Asperger's but the truth is that everybody, people on the spectrum or no, are anonymous online and can do anything there (or so they think) so all people are rapidly losing touch with one another in real life. How many people do you see sitting together and they should actually be talking but they are instead on their handheld devices either texting, talking, e-mailing or surfing the net.

In case you can’t see it, the rest of society is slowly losing the ability to socialise; in effect they are putting themselves on the spectrum right here alongside us.

I’m sorry, what was the question again ; ]

 

[Spinning Compass]

I totally agree with you. Gomendosi, I have noticed the same thing. That is why I don't spend a lot of time online.

I also think we have lost the ability to distinguish between an unpopular argument and true bigotry. Saying one does not approve of what gay people may or may not do (I really don't care to be enlightened on the details) is a far cry from advocating discrimination. I may have my own opinion on the subject but I strive to treat all people regardless of race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. with respect and dignity. What a person does in his or her free time with other consenting adults is his or her business, whether I like it or not. I think that a person should have the right to voice his or her opinion, but to do it in respect and not resort to name-calling or blanket condemnation. However it is not always prudent to express one's opinion either. I dare say you on this forum know far more about me than people I work with, go to church with, or live near. And yet there is a lot you don't know about me.