Accommodating disability/identity going too far?

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/bradley-manning-gender-surgery-95797.html
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/28/214831473/new-accessible-playground-rules-may-not-go-far-enough

You may be surprised to hear this from a progressive, but I am getting a bit tired of what I interpret as excessive accommodation (or less flattering... tyranny of the minority). The Constitution protects life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness - not an actual guarantee of happiness (especially when that may result in less liberty for others). Life is hard much of the time for most of us (even "normal" folks); why does society have to address your specific issue at what could be great cost/unfairness to others, some of whom may be even needier by reasonable measures? Part of that stems from the greater diversity and funding for interest groups of course. But maybe part of it is also a bit of egocentrism: my problems are more important than yours. Often "fights for justice/rights/equality" have degenerated into fights for disproportional, preferential treatment (pro-Israel lobby, breast cancer funding, etc.). People rarely take the time to consider that the extra stuff they get may result in involuntary sacrifices from others.

Obviously those with special needs deserve some assistance, compassion, and reasonable laws to govern their treatment. But do we give equivalent concern for other types of needs, such as language barriers, poverty, climate-geography, family situation, non-mainstream religions, or general inability to thrive in this market economy? Many of those factors are also out of the individual's control and often no fault of their own.

First of all, if we run the #s and accessibility/sensitivity measures don't cost the nation that much, then it's a moot point. But there are a gazillion types of disabilities, and some are of course easier to accommodate for than others (and do employers and orgs have to plan for all of them?). I couldn't find summarized figures, but as a case example take North Adams, MA with a pop. of 14K. The DOJ is forcing them to pay $1M over 3-5 years for ADA compliance. I am not sure if this is representative of the overall US or not, but that is $71/resident. Disabled people are about 13% of the nation (43M ppl), but of course not all of them will need every type of ADA modification. To put it in perspective, a single person with a $50K income contributed $73 towards science/tech research in their federal tax return. So North Adams was spending as much on ADA compliance (that may nor may not help anyone) as they were on research (that ironically could reduce/mitigate disabilities). So we're robbing from the future to pay for quasi-arbitrary mandates. I am sure some of those upgrades were serious and needed, but I'm also pretty sure some weren't. 

With all our crumbling schools, bridges, power grids, etc., we have to prioritize our spending by cost/benefit. Maybe that is cold, and of course we don't want to leave critically needy people hanging, but ultimately if we spend $ smarter, America will be better off. I wonder if people even collect data regarding how many Braille signs are actually used by the blind, how many CC-hearing impaired tools are actually used by the deaf, what % of workers are self-identified as disabled, or how many ADA accessible bathrooms/parking stalls/etc. are "surplus". There's no point imposing all these costs on businesses and other orgs if they're not even helping the handicapped much.

The various versions of ADA were meant to be civil rights legislation preventing discrimination against the handicapped, which is probably good. But according to wiki sources below, the Act is so vague and inconsistent (like most legislation) that it may actually make it harder for the handicapped to get some jobs, and opened the door to an avalanche of litigation. Of course the disabilities with the best advocacy assets got more favorable attention/provisions (how does one rank disabilities anyway?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990

People should have equal rights and "relatively" equal access to public services and life activities. But that doesn't mean we can all enjoy them equally. People have "disadvantages", whether mental, physical, emotional, economic, or otherwise that may significantly reduce their access to privileged or even basic stuff. We can't remedy 100% of those cases, and it would probably be highly corrupt and oppressive if we tried. Sometime it's morally right and maybe socially justified to try, but we need to give it a lot more thought before imposing sweeping mandates on a community, or the entire nation.

Some of these comments apply to identity issues too. I'm sorry, but society does not have to bend over backwards just so you can "be who you are". ALL of us put on masks every day and have to conform to some other persona just to be part of society. We don't have unlimited, absolute freedom and liberty. Reasonable accommodations are fine, but that is of course subjective and I am not sure if legislators or even judges are the best people to make the call. I wonder how much of it is real personal strife and how much is just vanity or an attention grab. I really doubt most elementary kids can be certain of their gender identity; they've barely spent any time at all as that gender. I know it is a real issue for some, but I can envision a lot of misunderstanding and problems associated with this type of law. Surely it is wrong for kids to be discriminated against based on what gender they want to associate with and what society expects them to have. But the law can't prevent every wrong from occurring, and this could cause disturbance and tension for many other students and their families. Maybe the best solution is to build a solo unisex bathroom in each school? But that isn't much different than enforcing ADA building rules I guess.

Disability coverage masks US labor force problems

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

Starting with the Bush I recession in 1990, the numbers of Americans on disability rolls has surged. The Great Recession has further accelerated the trend. Now disability spending > (food stamps + welfare combined), with 14M Americans participating (9% of the labor force).

Of course some people are truly disabled and need public assistance to survive, but many others suffer from the same "ailments" that working people have. I am not saying that these people are lazy "takers", and in fact there is a higher prevalence in southern Red states (and of course is correlated with education levels and local economic conditions). And that is kind of the point - due to structural changes in the US economy and labor force, tens of millions of Americans are now effectively unhirable in the 21st Century. Often they come from blue-collar non-desk jobs that are more physical, so it is likely that they have various pains and elements. So it is easy for a physician to approve many of them for disability. But the problem is that once they are approved and on the rolls, there is next to zero incentive for them to find a job and go through the effort of retraining. It's not like welfare and unemployment with a finite time span of benefits. And speaking of welfare - that is a driver too. "Reforms" under Clinton and Newt effectively shifted people on welfare to other programs such as disability, so it didn't really save the country much money or motivate the labor force. Probably America would get more bang for its buck if it invested in worker transition and retraining programs rather than just hide/relegate these people to the disability space (the US spends about $260B/year on the 2 major disability programs). I am not advocating kicking legitimate people off these programs, but I think it behooves us to at least perform a cost and impact analysis, and propose improvements/alternatives. Disability is just a band-aid to mask our larger labor and health care problems.

There is even a cottage industry now ("disability industrial complex") to advise and help people to get approved for disability - similar to the folks who help kids get into college or help immigrants get their green cards (one firm took in $70M in fees in 2012 alone). And some families may now see their kids as "cash cows" too, by enrolling them and collecting additional benefits. The number of kids on disability has grown 4X since 1990. Clearly medicine has improved since then, and doctors are better able to diagnose disabilities, but it is pretty much impossible to attribute that huge rise to actual increases in disability diagnoses and incidence.