The Laissez Faire Electronic Times

Once upon a time, a man's home was said to be his castle. Ignoring for the moment any implicit sexism in this old saw, this phrase essentially meant that, no matter what a person might have to endure at work or elsewhere, in his own home, he was sovereign. His boss might abuse him and order him about. Strangers might take advantage of him. The police might harass him. But as soon as he crossed the threshold of his own house, he got to call the shots. If he wanted to drink a fifth of gin or trot about in his underwear or erect a shrine to Brittany Spears, no one — no one — could prevent him from doing so or make him do otherwise.

Ah, what a delightful fantasy. Would that this situation yet held honor in this country.

"Property" has — in its most fundamental sense — long been a dirty word to the politicians and the envious in this nation. (But I repeat myself.) Indeed, the fact that "private" must preface "property" is an indicator of how far we have traveled down the slippery road to tyranny. After all, all property should be privately owned, i.e., owned by individuals. The debasement of this concept parallels the redundancies of "laissez faire" capitalism and "individual" rights. The blurring of once crystalline ideas provides the statists and collectivists and irrationalists with the wedges they need to pry away at our liberties one brick at a time.

Instead of "property," we now have "public" vs "private" property.

Instead of "capitalism," we now have "mixed" capitalism vs "laissez faire" capitalism vs "people's" capitalism.

Instead of "rights," we now have gay rights and women's rights, children's rights and old people's rights. There are also "disabled" rights. (Oh, how accurate that phrase is these days . . . though hardly in the sense that it is intended by its proponents.)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (1990) is one of those innumerable "feel good" but accomplish-the-opposite pieces of legislation that is designed to "harrass [sic] our People, and eat out their Substance." Sad though it is to acknowledge, another good ol' Ioway boy, Senator Tom "I'm Collectivist as Hell and Proud of It" Harkin was one of the primary sponsors who helped cram this travesty of "justice" down the throats of the American public. Aided and abetted by King George "Read My Lips" Bush the First — that old-block off of which the current president is a chip — Harkin and his cohorts in crime touted this draconian bill as profoundly moral and important and compassionate and all the usual lies.

Such prevarications are larded on with the greatest and utmost zeal and vigor when the law in question is particularly heinous and foul. (Compare the hoopla surrounding the ADA like a fortress to the whirlwind of propaganda promoting the PATRIOT Bill, a law that is e'en now smothering our country's citizens in its warm and tightening embrace.)

In the Office

The freedom of contract guaranteed by the Constitution?

Out da window! Ya can't write no stinkin' buildin' or employment contract excludin' disabled folk. Dat upsets da Boss, and he don't like dat, not one little bit. Da Boss excels at " . . . impairing the Obligation of Contracts." If ya don't like it, he'll make ya an offer ya can't refuse . . .

Freedom of association?

Uh, yah fur sure, dude. Not! Like, what ya thinkin' there, fella? No way, Jose. Don't matter if ya like the other dude or not, man. Don't matter if he drools or stammers or can't walk. Don't matter if the dudette can do the work, man. Don't matter if ya just don't like looking at or being around dudes in wheelchairs or such types who just look or act funny or weird. And if ya do hire the dudette, well, man, no way in hello are ya gonna be allowed to fire her, man. That just wouldn't be right. Uh, uh!

Private property?

(Chortle!)

The wedge tearing that foundational board away from the structure that is our liberty is dug in deep. You foolish people! Don't you realize that "visitability" — not visibility, mind you, but visitability — trumps your weak, old property deed. "Ownership" is well on the way to meaning nothing more than "custodianship." Here's a prime case exemplifying the essence of fascism.

As Ayn Rand pointed out, "Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal . . . citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership." ("The Fascist New Frontier," in The Ayn Rand Column, second edition, p. 98.)

Home Construction

The proud leaders in this goose-stepping march to "Freiheit"? The politicians in Naperville, Illinois, and in Pima County, Arizona, in which is located my old graduate school home, Tucson. (Sad what a decade-plus of invasion by liberal Northerners can do to a once independence-loving region. To think, I once weighed Tucson as a potentially permanent home . . . Now, I can almost see Arizonan Barry Goldwater rolling over in his grave . . . )

In those twin bastions of "progressive" (blech! patooie!) thought, the construction of all new homes must incorporate features designed to accommodate the needs of the handicapped. (Another corrupted concept: "need." Precisely how much obligation does your "need" place upon me, my money, and my life? Exactly zero, buddy.)

Doors must be wide enough for easy access by people in wheelchairs. Light switches must be close enough to the floor so the wheelchair-bound can easily reach them. Electrical sockets, however, must be placed higher off the floor so cords can more readily be plugged in. Bathroom walls must be reinforced so they can support the weight of a disabled person using a handrail. The latter is a mandate in Naperville. In Pima County, it is not. (Oh! Those daring rebels! What a tribute to the cowboy spirit . . . ) Oops! Forgot. The sunburned crowd makes up for this teeny loophole by requiring a "zero-step entrance." Dang.

(Why, exactly, do all the ADA boosters assume that "handicapped" equals wheelchair-bound? In Naperville and Pima County, we witness yet another example of the "one-size-fits-all" mentality. This same mindset similarly enslaves our students and teachers in a coercive educational establishment that demands uniformity and obediance. As for the disabled: remember all those sidewalks that were cut away to help people in wheelchairs? Well, by golly, such sloping walks make it harder for blind folks with canes to get about. The ADA-ites, of course, ignore such trivial matters as the actual individuals who must suffer, er, excuse me, who benefit from their wondrously thoughtful commands.)

In an obscenely ironic note, the disabled people lauding these dictatorial requirements in Naperville and Pima County say they now have a "whole new sense of freedom" (!).

One disabled mini-Mussolini, Bill Malleris, says, in typical Orwellian fashion, that without such rules, the "situation is so dehumanizing it is wrong, morally and ethically wrong." He thinks it's "degrading" when he can't use someone else's bathroom as he wants to use it. This bozo wouldn't know "wrong" or "moral" or "ethical" if they rose up and bit him on the nose.

One "abled" supporter of this assault on morality and ethics and rights, Daniel Lauber, a lawyer (whoa! there's a surprise!), informs us from atop his high-horse that it is imperative that we be "sensitive to the needs" of the handicapped. ("Sensitive" paired with "needs": the Full Monty of State-Speak.)

Home Builders Association of Illinois executive director, Mark Harrison, nailed a fact implicit in all such redistributionist and regulatory nooses the State slips around our necks when he said, ". . . it's real easy to spend somebody else's money." Amen and hallelujah, brother!

In New York City and other such "progressive" locales, rent control was imposed to "help" poor people and to address their needs. Such "humanitarian" programs led to a restriction in the construction of new housing, deteriorating apartment buildings landlords could not afford to maintain, and a general rise in prices to stratospheric levels of other apartments and homes not subject to rent control. And, of course, "greedy" developers and insensitive "slumlords" received the blame for this sorry state of affairs.

Stuart Hersh of the Austin, Texas, Housing Department recognized the real risk of similar outcomes if such disabled codes as those in Naperville and Pima County become widespread when he said, ". . . you might end up with no housing."

Ya think?

Just as one restriction on smoking led to another and then one more and now has made smokers the new "niggers" of our society, the ADA is yet another hammer the State uses to chip away at the fast eroding foundation of our freedom. The ADA needs to be repealed, lanced through the heart, garlanded in garlic, and buried in hallowed ground, never to arise again.

But it won't be. Because we do have a handicapped problem in this country. Unless and until the politicians and their supporters recognize that they are morally handicapped, we will continue to pay the price of our autonomy for their never-ending control-by-stealth strategies.

And that fact, my friends, is what is truly degrading about the ADA.

See Russ Madden's articles, short stories, novel excerpts, and items of interest to Objectivists, libertarians, and sci-fi fans at http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/.

from The Laissez Faire Electronic Times, Vol 1, No 1, February 18, 2002