Dsabled Access To Manx Glens.

[Rog]

Let’s look at some of the comments since I last made a --- contribution.

 

Rather than attribute them to a ‘name’ I’ll simply address the issue.

 

Rog, your attitude truly shocks me, as I am sure many other people.

 

I suspect however this is your intention which makes you an extremely sad individual of very little substance.

 

Let's hope you or anyone you care about never have to face any physical disabilities.

 

I’m NOT out to shock, and I not only have to live with someone with a physical disability but my own arthritis is in itself disabling at times to the point of being crippling.

 

Rog: Going by some of your comments, I guess you haven't worked with or cared for disabled people in your life, otherwise you wouldn't use this kind of language - it's deeply offensive...

 

Wrong. As for my choice of language? Where’s the offensiveness? There’s none, simply plain speaking (well, writing actually) and expressing an opinion that hard though it might be for the milk sop namby-pamby product of our ‘hurt none’ society and education is STILL far more common than they might like to think.

 

And where ever changes to the environment aren't possible or desired, the use of outdoor mobility aids could be looked into further - just a thought

 

And a very GOOD thought.

 

You clearly think that anyone with a physical disability is self evidently a "spastic". I don't think that being immobile causes you to drool and jabber too much, it just causes you to have to sit on your arse because your legs don't work.

 

(I should add that I was attempting to be critical, but the last sentence got cut off the post.

 

It is certainly a retrograde perspective to have. The assumption that anyone in a wheelchair has to be a spastic is deplorable. Physical disability is just disability; it is not a mental handicap.

 

The decision that I map a physical disability with someone with cerebral palsy (I recognise that the term ‘spastic’ is offensive) is totally wrong. It is amusing that the false analysis is then used to reach a value decision that is also by definition wrong.

 

The remarks made by some on this topic cannot be right. I have worked in the health service all my working life and if I adopted some of the attitudes displayed in this thread I would have simply been in the wrong profession and no doubt would have been turfed out.

 

I am only glad that there are more right thinking people in the world who are doing their best to combat the attitudes of those who spout evil and think it is clever and the mark of education.

The NHS is (supposed) to be the ultimate caring profession with the totality of ill and dysfunctional people within its remit. It is entirely appropriate that anyone working therein should have a very inclusive mindset about such people.

 

In the same way a person who works in an abattoir should be able to deal with not only the odd ‘normal’ task but also be willing in some circumstances the be knee deep in blood and guts.

 

Just as I don’t want to see the severely dysfunctional or deformed traipsed out nor do I want the less attractive contents of an abattoir driven around to give them an airing.

 

The danger is that legislation to enable access for the disabled unless very carefully drawn up will be the thin end of a VERY expensive and VERY unattractive wedge. Changes to what presentlye xists should be done with the utmost care - care for the MAJORITY.

 

Your examples of two headed monsters, etc., to make a point I understand, is just missing the whole issue. There are many people born or due to accident, illness or plain age have mobility restrictions, they may even have mental restrictions, but still have the desire to enjoy a little bit of what the rest of us take for granted. Is it really too difficult to give a bit of thought for them?

 

A bit of thought and a bit of action but what I see taking place over here is dam fool silly and it’s getting worse.

 

My mother has not asked (nor have I asked on her behalf) to go snowboarding, go-karting or even uphill tobogganing, (really, I just mean a walk through a glen or a visit to the beach), but we would ask that when her grandchildren do that, she can be in some way involved rather than left at home because there isn't a bench, say, in a sunny spot that she can sit on while we go off and do our doings. Anything objectionable in that?

 

Yes if it results in changes to a facility that the majority of people like as it presently is.

 

People seem to have lost the ability to accept that sometimes (OK, it’s a cliché) bad things happen to good people. Even when they do they then expect that the environment must be changed for them. SOME changes where there is no discernable effect – not a problem, but once the gates are open then the next thing will be that the majority must make way for the minority. That is wrong.

 

There are times that a minority, no matter how unfair it might seem to them or their relatives and friends, simply have to accept that life isn’t fair and get on with things as they are.

 

Why not just lock them all up in an asylum or workhouse? That would save people the terrible inconvenience of having to help them have anything approaching a 'normal' life and enjoying things other people take for granted or, god forbid actually having to meet them.

 

There are very good arguments in favour of a return of both lunatic asylums AND workhouses.

 

Seriously. What has been forgotten is that apart from all that was wrong with the Asylums as they were (and here was lts) was that in addition to providing a place of incarceration for those who needed to be incarcerated they also provided an asylum for the dysfunctional that now are either whiling their time away in considerable discomfort due to the awful ‘care in the community’ program that has virtually totally broken down r they end up in jail.

 

As for workhouses, the economic desirability not to mention the house shortages make the concept of residential sheltered work seem like a very good idea indeed. It would address many of the problems that the UK faces and to be frank I would not be in the least surprised if they were not to return I some form within the next 25 – 30 years.

 

 

The original 'cripple' remark was crass, stupid and ignorant, the other "drooling and jabbering in a wheelchair" even worse.

 

That is your opinion. You are in my opinion rong.

 

Sorry for this one off posting but the attitude displayed needs changing as the attitudes to other minorities has been. Unbelievable!!!

 

It’s time that minorities were returned to their correct status. That of being a minority – and that FAR more attention was given to the majority.

 

Unfortunately all the good work that is done on the Island by carers, family members, friends is drowned out by those who are self centred and incapable of understanding the needs of others. They make so much noise that people from across are led to believe they are representative of the Manx nation. They are not and never will be.

 

Wake up and smell the coffee. There’s more petty minded mendacious duplicitous individuals per capita on the Island than on the mainland by far.

 

The Manx are kind and good natured and we welcome anyone who shares our values. Those who don't should take time out and reflect on how they can change to make a positive contribution in their new homeland.

 

That is simply untrue. It would be nice it was true, but it isn’t.

 

I’m Manx through and through and it my knowledge of what most of the Manx are like that keeps me from returning now I have retired.

 

Rog, apparently, is resident in Norwich having left the island many years ago. So his views are not representative of Manx attitudes, just those of any self-important, bombastic, narrow-minded and arrogant old duffer anywhere in the world.

 

Nearly right – I do live in Norwich but when the chips are down my views are actually closer aligned with the majority who when faced with a thing ‘on the hoof’, and not simply as a ‘nice fluffy ideal’, suddenly take a very different attitude indeed.

[Paul H]

Seventeen years ago I was struck down by polio. Eventually, having lost the use of both my legs I was fortunate enough to recover the use of my limbs and make almost a full recovery. But during that time I felt pretty helpless and frustrated, not to mention depressed by the prospect of never being able to walk again. However, above all what made me excruciatingly mad was the way that everybody pitied me and treated me like a cripple. They would interfere when I was trying to get around and push me and pull me whether I wanted it or not. Then they would talk down to me as if I was of diminished mental capacity just because I was in a wheelchair.

 

Before I knew it there were all sorts of do gooders messing with my life and using MY incapacity as a means of fulfilling their desire to feel that they are doing something right. All I wanted was for them to piss off and let me sort my own problems out, and if they wanted to help someone there was a hospital full of people with far worse problems than mine.

 

It took me all of five minutes to work out when the doctors told me I would not walk again that my life was going to change and there would be things that I would no longer be able to do. That was fine. Because there is so much to do in life without the use of your legs I was not going to struggle to stay occupied, and if I had a burning desire to do something that required legs I would find a way around it.

 

Nowadays I share some of the same sentiments as Rog but can equally understand the feelings of others. What really annoys me more than anything is the able bodied people who claim to fully understand what the person in the wheel chair wants and takes it upon themselves to decide what would be ‘nice’ for them, often in a humiliating and degrading way though undoubtedly with the best intentions.

 

When you see a person in a wheel chair they don’t want disabled access or people to help them go to the toilet, above all THEY WANT TO BE NORMAL. So take your money that is wasted on disabled access to places that a considerable minority of able bodied people go, and spend it on medical research so that sooner rather than later people with disabilities can be cured instead of facing a future filled with ‘nice’ people deciding what they want.

[Ripsaw]

Not wishing to interupt the discussion on legal rights, legislation and creating offence, as captivating as it all is...

 

The Glens are in the main owned by the Forestry Department. The Proposal to provide access is from The Friends of The Glens, a seperate charitable entity.

 

The financial donations will be voluntery, the labour will be voluntery and the result will be freely available for all to use. The publicity from the fundraising and the future works also raise awareness of the Glens and the work involved in their upkeep.

 

All they want to do is give time and effort to provide something for the people of the Isle of Man.

 

I think it is a shame when the original intent (and the reason for the thread) is lost.

[silky]

I think it is a shame when the original intent (and the reason for the thread) is lost.

 

I agree completely

[Charles Flynn]

There was a good representation of disabled people at the meeting e.g. stroke victims, ME, Motor Neurone etc- all of whom fully supported the proposals.

 

So research yes, but also access to the Glens as well.

[teapot]

I'm not going to comment on any of the previous vitriol - just to say the IOM Government has just launched a new website DisabledGo which is supposed to assist people with disabilities when visiting places of interest on the Island. www.DisabledGo.info

Let's try and be a bit considerate and positive!

Fair play to the Government on this one, money (at last) well spent.