Now that I’ve spoke with the associate editor Anthony Westbury from TCPalm on the phone today (after I wrote my last post) about the way he wrote his May 29th article, I have a better understanding of where he is coming from as to why he chose the words ‘witch hunt.’ He doesn’t apologize for using those words, but thankfully he does realize that America has some seriously major problems with its public school system.
Here’s the bad news:
Mr. Westbury is not aware of the hatred which exists towards those of us on the autism spectrum. He said he has not heard anything about it. His exposure to such comments (not to be confused with the responses) as what lastcrazyhorn lists in her post The Golden Rule is just about null.
I have come across many hateful comments towards people on the autism spectrum, but I didn’t save them since they were too upsetting. Besides the hateful ones, many others were loaded with ignorance, lacked compassion, and contained a lot of judging. One site I happened to recall has 181 comments at my last check. That one (Digg.com) has a mixture of positive and negative remarks, but enough is there (if one wants to take the time to look) for people to see how diverse perceptions are on this matter of Aspergers.
Back to Westbury and what seems to be the biggest problem . . .
Mr. Westbury suspects that Wendy Portillo probably had no alternative way of getting Alex Barton out of the classroom than to do what she did. It’s beginning to sound like Alex has been treated like a hot potato no one wants. It’s as if it’s the, “You take him! No, you take him! Okay, I’ve had him . . . now you take him!” syndrome.
This ladder I’m referring to is bureaucracy. We’re now reaping what’s been sown. Society has progressively been building a bigger government with more agencies and employees way beyond what’s needed! It’s like a computer overloaded with programs running in the background without enough RAM to handle the mess, on top of each program writing code which wants to take priority — you keep doing that to a computer and you end up with your system freezing up because of overload.
Folks . . . we’ve already got OVERLOAD, so I pray to God people realize that the answer is NOT to create more laws and/or hire more employees to ‘enforce(?)’ them. Laws don’t work when there is no accountability. Government schools are not accountable when they get to hide what they want and reveal only what they’d like.
I told Mr. Westbury that if Mrs. Portillo gets to keep her teaching certificate, it would make problems worse. Allowing Wendy to continue working with children gives the message that people can do what they want when they work for the government. Too many government employees already believe they are above the law. On top of that, what’s worse is that children would grow up more cruel than how they already are doing!
I also expressed my opinion by saying that people who choose to work for the government must expect they will be placed into situations where their integrity will be tested. Because people place more importance on having a ‘good’ job that’s ’secure’ than they do on living responsibly towards ALL children, there are going to be children who will get sacrificed on the alter to burn at the stake.
It seems to me that the witch hunt already occured. It was when Wendy Portillo brought Alex Barton to the front of the class and encouraged his classmates to throw fuel into the fire Wendy kindled.
Maybe the change that’s needed is to shift from contacting people in government office to let them know what voters want, and instead place more attention on contacting those who influence public opinion the most (people who work in the news media).
Start with contacting people like Anthony Westbury to educate him on how much intolerance exists towards those on the autism spectrum. I’m not sure he was paying much attention to such things as my telling him that autistics are usually not allowed to voice their opinion on national television unless they give the impression they’d like autism ‘cured’ and that financially powerful organizations like Autism Speaks do not let autistics speak.
“If the horse isn’t thirsty enough to look for the water, then bring the water to the horse.” (My words)
