Conservatives and People of Faith Must Be a Voice for People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
Last year as a way to help me connect with people, a friend of mine introduced me to a group that had ties to a non-profit group called The Arc. Now the overall purpose of The Arc is to serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization's roots go back to 1936 with the Children's Benevolent League which was incorporated in Washington State. It would evolve into the Association for Retarded Children (or Citizens) which was the original acronym for ARC. Retarded these days is a politically incorrect term, and thus The Arc has no meaning anymore in itself anymore. I myself do fall into those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
While I would agree that "retarded" would be a derogatory term and mental disabilities would be a more appropriate term to use, I eventually had to leave my local group of The Arc and it was strictly out of my own choice and my choice alone.
The Arc I soon found out opposed any repeal of the Affordable Care Act. One of the biggest reasons why they support the ACA (aka ObamaCare) is that the law itself allowed for Medicaid expansion, and thus bringing more people into that welfare program including people with disabilities. I also looked at their blog and they were also opposed to the recent signed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and while I have my healthy skepticism about this brand new law signed by President Trump, I do think we need to reign in Medicaid spending cause if we don't, it will eventually go broke and those who have depended on it really suffer.
Sadly, The Arc has been grounded in a belief that only big government can help those with disabilities. The Arc's long standing tax policy according to them is; "that it should raise sufficient revenues to finance essential programs that help people with disabilities to live and work in the community. The Arc also supports tax policy that is fair and reduces income inequality; people with disabilities are twice as likely to experience poverty."
The term 'income inequality' should be a red flag for anyone who calls themselves a conservative. What does The Arc consider 'income inequality?" This is just one of those buzz terms that the left has thrown around for years, and The Arc while they want to give people with disabilities a voice, that voice sadly eventually will advocate for more bigger government and higher taxes and regulation. All in the name of helping the intellectual and developmental disabled. The Arc to me is just another organization that is ran by maybe well intended progressives to liberal thinking people.
I would like to ask The Arc why must people be forced to buy expensive health insurance so that they can take the money out of the consumers to spread to the mentally disabled (via government edict) so that they can be insured? The money could have gone to invest in the needs of individual families who work to the bone just to make a living. Progressives have forced people to work harder for other people that they will never meet. Yet this spreading of the wealth is supposed to make us feel good about our government helping others. Some legitimately do need help from the government and others just stay on the dole and contribute to the collapse of the welfare state.
The welfare state is a sacred cow of the progressives because it is used by progressive politicians to buy votes from their constituents. The Arc is no different as progressive politicians are buying favor with them as well. The short term might be favorable to the disabled but if the socialist scheme crashes and big government can't help them any longer, I can only tell the disabled community to be on guard.
I am not saying that the disabled should not receive government help. What I am saying is that we need to reform welfare programs so that it does not come crashing down like a ton of rocks. I am afraid that eventually the disabled will be weeded out of the population because they are now a burden to our government. If CBS News enjoys the fact that Iceland murders the preborn that have mental disabilities via legal abortion, then that thinking is only a hop, skip and jump away from coming to America and worse.
If you are part of The Arc, and agree with me that The Arc's advocacy of big government is wrong, we need to figure out a way to create some kind of organization that is not focused on big centralized government but rather embolden those with intellectual and developmental disabilities to be able to live not only independently but in a culture built on liberty and freedom. We now have stable organizations for senior citizens that promotes conservative values (AMAC, 60+, American Seniors Organization) and are true alternatives to the progressive AARP. Now we need conservative alternatives to The Arc.
