In a previous post I wondered “Are there issues on which lacking some major faculty like vision or hearing could be a serious detriment to the execution of sound public policy?”
While I half expected a number of self-righteous (and idiotic) “It’s wrong to even think about such things” comments, I got none. I did get a fairly lengthy comment from “Emily A”, though, reproduced here in its entirety:
To suggest that a person’s disability should be “weighed by the public” when deciding whether they are adequately prepared to make public policy is ridiculous. Should a person’s race, height, sex, or hair color be considered? Each of these are a purely physical attribute - much like blindess.
Yes, it is reasonable that a blind politician may have a slight difficulty understanding how hard it is to shoot someone, but there are countless examples of this in our society. Tell me how many presidents, senators, or representatives were ever on Medicare and understand what that is like. How many went to purely public schools and took out student loans? How many have ever been affected with AIDS or will have to depend on SS when they retire?
It is a reality of our political system that people are not able to experience every single position in life and therefore must set public policy guided by values, advice from advisors, public support, economics, etc.I have never once heard it suggested that a President is not capable of setting foreign aid policy even though he himself has never been on foreign aid, and suggesting that someone who is disabled is not capable respresents the fear and ignorance our society has about disabled individuals. Would it even be suggested that a person in the same position as the Senator, but able-bodied, wouldn’t be able to set policy on this issue even though he or she had never fired a gun?
Some of our most notable presidents, most significantly FDR and Abe Lincoln, were disabled. They both hid their disabilities from the public. Does a peson have to hide their disability to get a fair shot?
And finally, I disagree that a person’s disability wouldn’t be talked about in an election period. Yes an opponent might not mention it in an open debate, but it would be discussed in the court of public opinion. How many jokes were made about Bob Dole’s paralyzed arm?
One has to distinguish “race, height, sex, [and] hair color” from “blindness” because being blind is a disability. Compare being black, short, male, or blonde… none of those things are, or should be considered, disabilities. Blindness may, indeed, be a “physical attribute” but it is not just that. It is a disability in every sense of the word. Disabilities are legally considered in hiring decisions regularly, and the election of a policy-maker is nothing if not a hiring decision.
There’s a tremendous difference between having never experienced something and being physically incapable of that experience. Her example might work if she were talking about considering whether or not a politician has experience with a gun before electing them, but that’s not directly at issue here. (Though I hardly think this sort of legislation should be proposed by someone who has never shot a gun before, and I can only hope that the Senator falls into that category).
The second example, foreign aid, is almost laughable in its inadequacy to parallel this situation. The disbursement of aid (and receipt thereof) is a largely abstract and almost wholly intangible act. It’s just as easily understood by someone who has never been involved with it before as by someone who has intimate experience with it. Here we’re talking about something which is largely intellectual. The firing of a gun is practical and tangible in every sense of those words and, especially in the situations addressed by this bill, has a dearth of intellectual thought associated with it.
The suggestion that a blind person has different capacities than someone who doesn’t is not “fear and ignorance” it’s fact. This line of argument, however, is the very thing that inspires posts like the one leading to this: the tyranny of political-correctness. The fact that individuals and groups are willing to characterize the careful consideration of a particular disability’s impact as fearful or ignorant, while carrying a bit of irony for the sheer ignorance required to make such a suggestion, is a frightening form of intellectual bullying and amounts to little more than an attempt to influence thought through emotional blackmail and coercion, not unlike race-baiters who decry anyone who ponders the legitimacy or effectiveness of Affirmative Action as “racist.”
Further, the suggestion that the whole of a candidate’s capacities should be, insomuch as they relate to the execution of the duties of office sought, is neither ignorant nor fearful: it’s intelligent. As employers and constituents we should be unwavering in our desire to examine the things in our candidates that could have an undesirable impact on their ability to execute the duties of their office.
The only question, then, is whether or not a person’s disability will impact them in their job. The fact of the matter is that there are certain jobs that are incompatible with certain disabilities. You would not hire a quadriplegic as a bouncer at a night club, you would not hire someone who is deaf to transcribe audio tapes, and you wouldn’t hire a blind man as a sniper. Why? Because of fear and ignorance? Or because disabilities, true to their name, do indeed cause those with them to lack certain capacities? Which I guess is the “right” answer to my question: disabilities should be taken into account. That’s not to suggest that being blind or deaf should be a strict bar to election or hiring, but we ought to consider whether such serious disabilities would give another candidate an advantage.
Ken, earlier, suggested that fully abled individuals have proposed similar ridiculous laws. This, I think, says something about them personally, but doesn’t say much about the situation. The Senator in question has something of an excuse for his bill aside from stupidity.
That “normal” people might do the same ill-advised thing does not, by any stretch of the imagination, imply that the disability played no factor. People with 20/20 vision run into things. That doesn’t mean that a person’s blindness wasn’t a potential cause of that person running into something, only that it’s possible that they’d have run into the same thing were they not blind. A subtle but important difference.
Finally, I’m curious to know when, if ever, Bob Dole’s disability was used to suggest in some serious way that he shouldn’t be elected. That he was joked about on the night-time talk shows does not mean that his disability was the focus of the public political process.
So I guess that about covers it.
