Whenever someone is losing a battle the best way to turn things around is to switch to the side who is winning.
Although this sounds simple enough to avoid, some people are more interested in getting something done than they are about what that something is. They'll align themselves with the battle more than they do the cause. Their need to be on the winning side is more important than being on the right side.
This is often a problem with democracy when being outvoted leads people to change their vote to one that is more popular. If you put a name on something and have trouble getting the majority of people to agree with you, one way to claim victory is to change what the name means so it then means the opposite of what was unpopular. That way *your* name still can be popular even though what you believed in has been sacrificed.
Human rights began as a political struggle. Democracy was meant as a means of balancing power so that each person would be seen as deserving respect. There are sometimes differing views on ethics but the biggest struggle is always preventing people who put what they consider progress above the welfare and dignity of people.
Most of the struggles between people over human rights are not about whether respect and dignity are shown one way rather than another or whether one category of person is more deserving of respect and dignity than another category. Instead most struggles depend on whether what some feel leads to a more effective progress should be achieved by varying degrees of sacrificing someone's (or a group of someone's) human rights.
I believe the most important aspect of neurodiversity as an ideal that counters how the mainstream media describes autism is how human rights of autistic people should always be more important than the supposed progress that the rest of mainstream society has designed for us.
The treatment of autistic people is too often decided by what others have claimed will help us learn to act more deserving of what society awards what they call the "normal" population. The mainstream description of autism too often favors this treatment over our human rights and adds to it the insulting declaration that pity along with the desire for us to fit in is an act of kindness and charity.
At this point, the solidarity of votes about issues concerning autism is a way to further the agenda of how the mainstream media describes autism. Opposition to these goals will need to appear sufficiently contradictory to that so the better options are considered.
If the current popular political position on autism is demanded (which is not truly representative of such a diverse group), total solidarity will create an even worse view of autistic people. The delicate nature of the agreed-upon misunderstanding will construct worse laws regarding the rights of autistic people which will then be even harder to change.The chaos that accompanies these misunderstandings will open the door for fewer more powerful leaders to make stricter laws.
Those who get to make those laws and decide the absolute interpretation of those laws will be ruler's and potential dictator's who won't be required to listen to anyone else and consider alternative rational approaches.
Idealist and advocates won't be making any decisions then. All these people will then just be obedient but resentful followers.
When ethics are sacrificed, the victory is temporary.The most ethical treatment is decided by those who have to live with the rewards and consequences of the decisions. Autistics have not yet been given the opportunity to be involved in the decisions that affect us and unfortunately the majority of mainstream voters intend for that to continue.
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