It’s one thing to shout into a void about some vague disagreement, but it’s entirely different to actually take some form of real action. What should that action comprise?
https://old.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1jc0y...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024%E2%80%93present_Serbian_a...
Be more like the Serbians. Don't just let things happen. You have agency. The government is supposed to be for the people, by the people - democracy doesn't only happen once every four years.
- "Kennedy said many autistic children were “fully functional” and “regressed … into autism when they were 2 years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”"
- "He also said, “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.”"
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-robert-f...
2. Continue speaking loudly about the various criminal acts of this administration and continue reinforcing the importance of not tuning it out
3. Find promising candidates and fund their run in 2026 to flip the house and strangle the administration with impeachments over their long list of violations of the Constitution
4. Arm yourselves in general before the GOP finally decides they're okay with preventing certain people from buying firearms (specifically "mentally ill" people who don't like Trump, i.e. https://thehill.com/homenews/5200463-trump-derangement-syndr...)
There's a great deal on an AR-15 at Palmetto State Armory right now — only $400!: https://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-pa15-16-phos-a2-mid-leng...
A lot of libs don't know this, but shooting is also extremely fun and gun people are extremely friendly and welcoming. Get a gun, book a lesson at your local range, and enjoy an afternoon learning how to use it. Guns are also a lot of fun for the gear-junkie types that I'm sure are overrepresented here on HN.
EDIT: I changed the order of these, apologies to the commenter below!
Many of them mocked anyone saying this would happen. And even now, there are people cheering on the idea of ignoring due process.
History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.
And yes the more general point is obviously gun ownership laws are highly localized. You should look up the requirements in your area and navigate them to acquire your very own check and balance, given that Congress has abdicated its role as such.
It is very dangerous that so much of the right wing thinks that liberals are afraid of (and therefore do not own) firearms. The meme needs to be that liberals are just as armed as anyone else and are a credible backstop on tyranny.
The challenges a level 1 autistic person faces are well recognized and good for network TV. finally - finally! - someone is talking about the rest of the population that face far greater challenges.
That's a very strange take considering he's known to spread lies. The very comment you replied to demonstrated that. He says that vaccines cause autism - they don't. He says that "Most cases now are severe." - they aren't.
I wouldn't say his record shows that he is either honest or candid:
https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-kennedy-vacc...
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rfk-jr-disqualified-from-ne...
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2023/jul/19/robert-f-k...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/rfk-jr-fact-check-co...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/debunking-some-of-rfk-...
> The challenges a level 1 autistic person faces are well recognized and good for network TV.
Those level 2 and 3 people you seem to be so worried about are the ones who are going to suffer the most. At least we know how to mask it in public.
It should be noted that the Nazis took a lot of US policies from 1920/30s and ran with them just a little bit further. The Nazis were famous for eugenics, but it was quite big in the US as well, see for example:
* https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/07/4694780...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
Their initial treatment/segregation of the Jews wasn't much different than treatment of blacks in the US.
It is not a lie, if you believe in it.
It is worth noting because nowadays the Nazis are treated as evil incarnate, and the Allied side of WW2 the side of justice, but the history of the ideas behind the Nazis does not lie (entirely) with-in Germany. There is darkness in every society (including the US) and certain tendencies, and worth reminding people that these things can take hold anywhere, and not just "over there".
It would take something very radical to fix the massive imbalance of power in this world. Something I fear Amercians are not ready for. So let it burn, maybe something better will emerge from the ashes.
The parent presumably singled out the Gestapo because it is one of the prime examples of a secret police detaining and punishing citizens without due process. The fact that the Gestapo didn't spring out of completely new ideas doesn't seem particularly relevant in this context.
There are more apposite comparisons: The US internment programs of 1942–1945, or McCarthyism and the Red Scare.
First of all that is false, because even profoundly autistic people do the things he said they don't do.
Secondly, it's dehumanizing because the reason he lied (yes what he said was a lie) was so that the listener would feel sorry for autistic people, and would thereby support Kennedy to do whatever he wants to them to restore their humanity, whether that be a registry, concentration camps (or as he calls them, "wellness farms") or whatever else he has planned.
> Kennedy to do whatever he wants to them to restore their humanity, whether that be a registry, concentration camps (or as he calls them, "wellness farms") or whatever else he has planned.
Wild conspiracy theories help nobody, and also harm autistic people.
As long as you define "ability to go to bathroom and pay taxes" as profound autism, that's true. But as I said, autism is a spectrum -- there is no such thing as "profoundly autistic". That's not a thing. You're again trying to make a dichotomy, and this is a misconception both you and Kennedy share.
> Wild conspiracy theories help nobody, and also harm autistic people.
We are at the point where it's no longer wild. They are literally planning a database, and planning "wellness farms", and using dehumanizing language to talk about the worth of autistic people within society. I'm really glad that for you, these concerns autistic people have about these plans are esoteric and "wild", but for the people they are targeting with registries and camps, we cannot afford to be so flippant.
No one else is going to advocate or look out for autistic people, so we have to do it ourselves, and if that means people think we are overreacting so be it. We're used to being told that anyway.
Yes. That's literally the meaning of profound - has trouble with common functioning. Your position seems to be that a group - profound autistic people - that is defined by it's functional ability is being mischaracterised as having low functional ability. Mine is that that is literally what profoundly autistic' means.
> No one else is going to advocate or look out for autistic people, so we have to do it ourselves, and if that means people think we are overreacting so be it.
Likewise, which is why I support efforts to investigate the causes of something that is currently very ill defined. I do have resevations about RFK, it reminds me of working at Google where people find research to support their pre-drawn conclusions. But conspiracy theories about death camps are not one of my concerns.
No my position is that you've created a tautology, and so the phrase "profoundly autistic" doesn't mean anything. You're profoundly autistic if you can't function, and if you can't function you're profoundly autistic. So what?
How does one measure "functional ability" -- functioning how and where and when? In a capitalist context? Academic context? social context? Where is the line? What's the cut off? Who is doing the assessing? Who is coming up with the criteria?
> But conspiracy theories about death camps are not one of my concerns.
I understand you don't think it's likely and don't care to discuss such matters, but you're not going to convince me these people are looking out for the best interests of autistic people. They're looking to be "right" about vaccines, and they're going to use autistic people however they can to get the answers they want.
That is a definition, not a tautology. Though I suspect the way this conversation will go is that we will argue over the definition of definition.
I’ll bow out, but I do share your concerns about people looking to be right about vaccines. I feel they may be right (and also that they may be wrong), but as I’ve mentioned in another thread, I’m concerned they’re finding research to support their conclusion (mercury and aluminium poisoning) rather than approaching the problem more rigorously.
We shall.
Given your circular definition of profound autism, what I had said is a tautology. And that's my point, the way you've defined this thing doesn't make logical sense.
A shame to bow out on a semantic quibble, I made a number of substantive points I'll that I guess will have to remain unanswered. At the end of the day this definition is circular and is of no use to anyone.
No. It's not circular. Matching a name to a value and then saying that value has that name isn't a tautology. We're on a forum for programmers, if you work in this industry you do it all the time. I'd hoped by discussing shared values we'd end civilly but I guess not.
And it is circular because you still haven't given a definition for "profound autism" -- all you have said is that "profound autism" is autism that profoundly disables a person. But what does that mean? Because all autism is profoundly disabling if you ask autistic people.
How does one go about determining if an autistic person is "profoundly" disabled? What's the test? What's the measure? How disabled can one be before they are considered not just regularly disabled, but "profoundly" disabled?
You've already said "you would say someone who headbangs has profound autism" but I headbang, and most people are surprised to learn I'm autistic. So I shouldn't be someone RFK is referring to in his speech, but according to the symptoms he lists off and your apparent concurrence here, I am someone he would be talking about.
Which brings me back to my original point: he was not clear at all in his speech.
You’re right there is a spectrum of abilities and this changes over time. However we can define a threshold. I think a self-harming stim as an adult like head banging is sufficient to qualify as profound.
> However we can define a threshold. I think a self-harming stim as an adult like head banging is sufficient to qualify as profound.
Yeah I agree, we can define a threshold. Meaning someone has to determine where the line is, and so my question is still: where is that line? Who determines it and how? The answer is that there is no line and no one determines it, RFK is just using vague nebulous terms, which are not clear at all.
> I think a self-harming stim as an adult like head banging is sufficient to qualify as profound.
Lots of autistic people self-harm as a stim, through skin picking, scraping, pinching, cutting, hair pulling, etc. So if "self-harming as a stim is sufficient to qualify as profoundly autistic", then they can sweep up pretty much any autistic person.
And that's the problem when autistic people are cut out of the conversation entirely and painting autistic people with a broad brush as RFK is doing.
Why is that the answer?
> So if "self-harming as a stim is sufficient to qualify as profoundly autistic", then they can sweep up pretty much any autistic person.
Disagree. I think your stats are off.
If it's not the answer, then where is the line and who determines it?
> Disagree. I think your stats are off.
I didn't provide any statistic, I made a generalized observation based on the autistic people I know. If you have stats, provide them.
But my observation is every autistic person I know has engaged in some level of self-harm stimming, and my generalization is that means lots of autistic people stim in this way, and this means if self-harm is a criteria for being "profoundly autistic", that will cause a lot of false positives.