[Nfbmo] Fw: [Missouri-l] Fw: [leadership] Good Intentions Gone Bad

Thu Sep 2 04:27:28 UTC 2010

John Stossel is, always has been, and always will be, an idiot.

In a message dated 9/1/2010 10:30:51 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
goodfolks at charter.net writes:

-----  Original Message ----- 
From: "Chip Hailey"  <chip at gatewayfortheblind.com>
To: "MCB Listserve"  <missouri-l at moblind.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 9:02  AM
Subject: [Missouri-l] Fw: [leadership] Good Intentions Gone  Bad

>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "peter  altschul" <paltschul at centurytel.net>
> To: "Acblead"  <leadership at acb.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2010 8:31  AM
> Subject: [leadership] Good Intentions Gone  Bad
>
>
>> Good Intentions Gone Bad
>>   John Stossel
>>  You own a business, maybe a restaurant.   You've got a lot to worry 
>> about.  You have to make sure the  food is safe and tastes good, that 
the 
>> place is clean and  appealing, that workers are friendly and paid 
>> according to a  hundred Labor Department and IRS rules.
>>  On top of that,  there are rules you might have no idea about.  The 
>> bathroom  sinks must be a specified height.  So must the doorknobs and 
>>  mirrors.  You must have rails.  And if these things aren't right --  
say, 
>> if your mirror is just one inch too high -- 
>> you  could be sued for thousands of dollars.  And be careful.  If you  
fail 
>> to let a customer bring a large snake, which he calls his  "service 
>> animal," into your restaurant, you could be in  trouble.  All of this is 
>> because of the well-intentioned  Americans With Disabilities Act, which 
>> President George  H.W.  Bush signed 20 years ago.
>>  The ADA was popular  with Republicans and Democrats.  It passed both 
>> houses of  Congress with overwhelming majorities, 377 to 28 in the House 
>> and  91 to 6 in the Senate.
>>  What does it do? The ADA prohibits  discrimination against people with 
>> disabilities, requiring  businesses to provide the disabled "equal 
access" 
>> and to make  "reasonable accommodation" for employees.  Tax credits and 
>>  deductions are available for special equipment (talking computers, for  
>> instance) and modifying buildings to comply with the  accessibility 
>> mandate.
>>  The ADA was supposed to  help more disabled people find jobs.  But did 
>> it? Strangely,  no.  An MIT study found that employment of disabled men 
>> ages  21 to 58 declined after the ADA went into effect.  Same for women  
>> ages 21 to 39.
>>  How could employment among the  disabled have declined? Because the law 
>> turns "protected" people  into potential lawsuits.  Most ADA litigation 
>> occurs when an  employee is fired, so the safest way to avoid those 
costs 
>> is not  to hire the disabled in the first place.
>>  Walter Olson, a  senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the 
>>  Overlawyeredddcom blog, says that the law was unnecessary.  Many "hire  
>> the handicapped" programs existed before the ADA passed.   Sadly, now 
most 
>> have been quietly discontinued, probably because  of the threat of legal 
>> consequences if an employee doesn't work  out.
>>  Under the ADA, Olson notes, fairness does not mean  treating disabled 
>> people the same as non-disabled people.   Rather it means accommodating 
>> them.  In other words, the law  requires that people be treated 
unequally.
>>  The law has also  unleashed a landslide of lawsuits by "professional 
>> litigants" who  file a hundred suits at a time.  Disabled people visit 
>>  businesses to look for violations, but instead of simply asking that a  
>> violation be corrected, they partner with lawyers who (legally)  extort 
>> settlement money from the businesses.
>>   Some disabled people have benefited from changes effected by the ADA,  
>> but the costs are rarely accounted for.  If a small business  has to lay 
>> off an employee to afford the added expense of  accommodating the 
>> disabled, is that a good thing -- especially  if, say, customers in 
>> wheelchairs are rare? Extra-wide bathroom  stalls that reduce the 
overall 
>> number of toilets are only some of  the unaccounted-for costs of the 
ADA. 
>> And since ADA modification  requirements are triggered by renovation, 
the 
>> law could actually  discourage businesses from making needed renovations 
>> as a way of  avoiding the expense.
>>  A few disabled people speak up against  the law.  Greg Perry, author of 
>> "Disabling America: The  Unintended Consequences of the Government's 
>> Protection of the  Handicapped," says that because the disabled now 
>> represent an  added expense to businesses, many resent them.
>>  Finally, the  ADA has led to some truly bizarre results.  Exxon gave 
ship 
>>  captain Joseph Hazelwood a job after he completed alcohol rehab. 
>>  Hazelwood then drank too much and let the Exxon Valdez run aground in  
>> Alaska.  Exxon was sued for allowing it to happen.  So  Exxon prohibited 
>> employees who have had a drug or drinking  problem from holding 
>> safety-sensitive jobs.  The result? You  guessed it -- employees with a 
>> history of alcohol abuse sued  under the ADA, demanding their "right" to 
>> those jobs.  The  federal government (Equal Employment Opportunity 
>> Commission)  supported the employees.  Courts are still trying to sort 
it 
>>  out.
>>  More money for the parasites.
>>  John  Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of 
Myths,  
>> Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything  You 
>> Know is Wrong.
>>  _______________________________________________
>> leadership mailing  list
>> leadership at acb.org
>>  http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/leadership
>
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