Dear Dr. Koplewicz

Dear Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz,

This letter is being sent to you in an effort to add my voice to the many voices who are outraged by your recent ads called "Ransom Notes", by the NYU Child Study Center.

I, as well as many others, are asking that you reconsider how everyone that is targeted by this campaign will be negatively affected by it, as well as to how such views that were expressed in this campaign have negatively affected society throughout the years.

I understand that you and others within the mental health professional community have often not been required to be responsible for your actions. I also understand this naivete has further impeded your developmental progress as a person. However, your behavior in this campaign has been recognized by many who are often very negatively affected by the societal views that the expressions made by this campaign are promoting, and we are not willing to be accepting of this inappropriate behavior.

We have been made aware that you were not aware of who we are and how we feel. Such awareness starts by you being willing to listen. Your profession often creates many pathological problems for doctors such as yourself who are given the license to practice in the name of therapeutic intervention, without being required to answer to those whom you profit from, and whose lives are affected by your inappropriate behavior.

We are willing to be a part of your education and rehabilitation. The first step requires that you acknowledge that you are in need of our services. Unfortunately, because of the severe problems associated with your recent behavior, we must require that you be willing to take immediate action to make reparations to all you have harmed in whatever ways you can (we will direct you as to how you can do that), and be willing to acknowledge from now on how behavior such as this is not acceptable.

We look forward to your immediate and complete compliance to our direction in this matter.

Sincerely,
Ed
http//:www.edsautismpage@blogspot.com

Real Solutions for Everyone

Even by today's standards, Sigmund Freud would be classified by wealth, status, and eccentricity rather than having habits that would define him as not acceptable enough to be a worthy member of society. However, the same habits that he had would describe someone else who had them (that didn't have wealth and status) in a way that would never allow them to be honored as eccentric.

There are laws that are determined by nothing more than social status. Whatever is being currently described as social skills is what defines social status. However, there doesn't need to be the focus that there is on the hierarchy and/or status that defines a person's worth. (and NO I don't think that the ideal of unreserved acceptance of human life is either unrealistic or unreasonable.)

It is more important than ever that we find ways that make nonviolent and benevolent behavior free from value judgments.

If you walk around a mall in one direction it is considered exercise and it is encouraged. Skateboarding may not be a crime but if you are going to carry that skateboard under your arm, you had better not let anyone see you walk in more than one direction because pacing is a crime. However, if you can pass as an executive, then you can then be considered to be having valid stress and you are allowed to do what would otherwise be considered pacing for other people.

If I have to go into the bank (because I wear the glasses that I do) it has been required of me that it come up on their computer that I "have autism". Because my behavior may be seen as unacceptable???? Like the kind of stress I get when I walk into a bank where it shows up on the computer that I "have autism''????

I had enough people watching me long before there was anything like "autism awareness". What do you think people are really trying to make people aware of?

Functions are described by what is socially acceptable and seen as worthy of respect. Autistics are divided as Aspies and low functioning because.... Why? Because the goal behind "research" and "awareness" is to provide the "real autistics" with "cures", "appropriate therapy" and to see that they are sent to the appropriate class? Is that class distinctions or classrooms?

Tell me, do you put high functioning Aspies in one "class" because all Aspies are gifted? Do you put all "low functioning" people with "real autism" or "low functioning autism" in another class room because they really can't be taught? What defines class or function and how many class's or functions do you think ought to be recognised as having something to offer society?

If you don't fit into a distinct class that is recognised as being worthy of respect, do you think that a truant officer will come to your home? Where in the world do you think truant officer's exist? Who do you think they serve? Do you think that everyone wants everybody to be educated? What for?

If you think that any behaviors that you or your child has may ever be seen as socially unacceptable just because its different, you might want to focus less on fixing what people arbitrarily decide is uncomfortable and unwanted and start focusing more on the awareness in society that makes society more tolerant and accepting of what they have chosen to dislike and be uncomfortable of.

Responsible Citizens

The most backwards words I've ever heard a so-called proud American say is, "America, love it or leave it." Such words seem to claim that to utilize your freedom is disrespectful to those who claim you have freedom. It reminds me of how an organization who claims to be guided by the principles of anonymity would make their first requirement that of introducing oneself.

How would a nation who claims to be guided by the principles of democracy and freedom be an example of the effectiveness of these principals to other nations?

When a dissident becomes a leader and then doesn't encourage independent thought and expression among their followers, they are not just fighting amongst those whom they claim ruled in a way that they needed to liberate themselves and others from, they are then waging war against themselves as well as waging war against those principals for which their followers chose them in the first place.

If industries such as psychiatry and behavior modification become overly focused on profits and show that they are willing to prey on peoples fear rather than promoting their strengths, then these industries are threats to the liberty and freedom of everyone.

I was born in a small town in the mountains of the southern part of the United States. The year was 1963. There was quite a revolution going on and I was born into the middle of it. It was a time that conformity needed to be challenged and it was.

I have studied for 45 years about how this revolution effected people. Since so many people who sought liberty during this time made mistakes about how to achieve liberation, anyone who didn't seek to find their own way became confined to a prison that was quite similar to those who clung to the ideals of conformity.

The resistance to this revolution was very strong and many conformists were quite fearful. Today we live in a different time but the fear of those who see nonconformists as a threat are still very loud, and this fear is being preyed on today by many industries who are willing to accept the temporary benefits that accompany the deception of a swollen market.

While fear has always been very marketable, it is not an aspiration that people are drawn toward but rather a prison where people without aspirations end up.

Psychiatry has always used fear as their primary method of promotion.

Just like the politics and religions it supports, psychiatry makes a fearful spectacle of anyone who resists the agenda that the promoters of psychiatry preach.

I remember 1980 as the time when I really saw the leaders in the United States become very absolute about their direction of becoming governed by a single political party that would promote the falsehood of how their description of personal responsibility would create liberty for everyone. There still has not been enough resistance to this false agenda.

The view of these political leaders had very close ties with those views of the industry of psychiatry in much the same way as the views of psychologist Abraham Maslow promoted the New Deal plan of the president at that time, Franklin Delanore Roosevelt.

No irresponsible leader has ever inspired a responsible form of government. The fear that results from irresponsible leadership has more to do with the acts of a dictator rather than the courage that comes from the inspiration of a liberater.

Since there is no separating personal responsibility from societal responsibility, when people try to promote one at the expense of the other, the result is the lack of responsibility.

The most widely used recreational drug in the U.S. today is reported to be the same as the most widely prescribed psychotropic medication for children who are descibed as having "behavioral problems." At the same time more and more methadone users are being excluded from the same system that provided it to them in the first place.

Nicotine is described as being as addictive as heroin, and yet cigarettes are seen as a conveinient thing to tax because it's unhealthy and people don't need them.

Why do you think that 11% of U.S. military veterans are homeless? Also remember that those were are given cigarettes and taught to "Smoke em if you got em" have insult added to injury when windfall profits never reach the bottom but those taxes sure do.

If torture is being used by every nation that is at war, how do you think the U.S. military creates endurance amongst it's soldiers who they think might tell important information if they are taken prisoner? The same way that every other nation does it. The soldiers are tested by being given those tortures they might receive.

While modern psychiatrist report that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is at its worst amongst military veterans now, the aid to these veterans is reported to be worse than ever.

When prohibition ended and the FDA was created, which drugs were put on the list as being illeagal and why? LSD 25 when it was first created was not illeagal. It was first tested on U.S. soldiers, mental patients, and, you guessed it; it was one of the first treaments used to try to do what they claimed would, "cure autism".

When the NAMI worked to get the bill passed to make it so that parents would be allowed to demand their sons and daughters (at any age) who had a diagnosis of mental illness could be placed in a mental institution (against the patients will) based on nothing more than the parents say so....All I could say is "don't". You bet I got attacked for that, but even if I could have argued my point, I wasn't allowed to by the parents.

So, whats a citizen to do about autism? You know that there is no such thing as autistic services - but what about autism services? Saying that your child has a treatable, and/or curable "disorder" and calling that disorder autism will get you milage points right now, but you won't like where that train takes you. Nor will you ever be able to afford the consequences. That is guaranteed.

A culture that accepts difference is the only real guarantee any of us has.

So, how radical am I going to be about what I say? As radical as I want to be (I might teach Dennis Rodman a thing or two about how to be radical), until they don't let me speak anymore.

To those who say, "America, love it or leave it." I say, "Liberty, use it or lose it."