POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD

Aggrieved Able-Bodied Americans Against Special Privileges for the Disabled

By : Mr. Martin G. Toyler, Able-Bodied Senior Employment Advocate & Party Theorist

Americans know what it means to work hard. They know what it means to get up before dawn, travel for over an hour, then begin hammering on concrete blocks at a construction site. They also know what it means to grind out 13 hours a day in an office finalizing a key finance presentation. At week’s end, they wipe the sweat from their brow and take home their honest pay. They pay their mortgages. They buy food. And they see their families when they can. This is how America works.

But in these dark days, employers can no longer afford to provide jobs to every American. Recent financial turmoil translates into lower operating budgets, and that means fewer jobs. Employers need to maintain profit levels to stay in business. As much as they would like to provide jobs to as many Americans as possible, they simply do not have the excess cash needed. To be blunt, if employers kept hiring, they would slip into bankruptcy. Sadly, this trend has thrown millions of able-bodied, hard-working Americans into the unemployment lines. Despite these developments, however, Federal and State laws coerce employers to continue employing cripples and geriatric do-nothings in the name of “age and disability equality.” When employers move to downsize these worthless parasites, government bureaus step in to impose fines for “age and disability discrimination.” This is both absurd and unjust. Worse, it insults every able-bodied American who wants to work.

Let us agree on first principles. To work, you must be generally healthy. You must have the physical ability to use your arms, legs, mouth and hands to perform economically worthwhile functions for your employer. If you are paralyzed or limbless, you cannot sew, type or enter data effectively. If you cannot speak, you cannot present daily oral status reports to senior managers. Additionally, if you are blind, retarded, footless or without fingers, you cannot drive a truck to the regional distribution center in St. Louis. Similarly, if you suffer from cystic fibrosis and incessantly cough up disgusting phlegm on your shirt, you cannot effectively render customer service, either in-person or on the phone. If you have an incontinence problem, you cannot consistently file court papers, run up staircases or quickly deliver messages by bicycle. And if you are a senile 85-year old, you will not be able to focus on customers’ complaints concerning their phone service. Nonetheless, Federal law mandates that employers continue to provide jobs to these worthless cripples while able-bodied Americans starve.

Able-bodied Americans deserve jobs because they are more productive than cripples and octogenarians. We, the Aggrieved Able-Bodied Americans Against Special Privileges for the Disabled, believe that it is time to restore reason in American employment. That means we must free employers from pernicious “special interest” laws that force them to hire armless workers. It is time for the government to put employers first, not cripples and confused old women. Without sensible laws favoring employer discretion, our employment dilemma will only worsen. Without laws that permit employers to fire injured workers at will, the job market for able-bodied Americans will shrink even further. For decades, the law has pandered to an economically worthless constituency at employer expense. The law forces property owners to “accommodate” Americans in wheelchairs by building extraordinarily expensive ramps, elevators and automatic doorways. These measures have forced countless businesses into bankruptcy, costing jobs, savings and profits. And for what? So some wheelchair-bound diabetes-ridden amputee can ask about a job in the mail room? This is economic foolishness at its worst. We need to reorder our priorities—and we need to do it soon.

Laws favoring old, disabled and sick Americans discriminate against young, able-bodied and healthy Americans. Young, able-bodied and healthy Americans carry this Nation’s economic burden, yet the law treats them worse than cripples who do nothing for the economy. Able-bodied Americans deserve preferences, not disadvantages. Able-bodied Americans get the job done for less pay. They can be fired when they do not perform their assigned tasks. Yet crippled Americans do not get the job done, cost more, and they cannot be fired when they physically cannot perform their assigned tasks. This is insanity. It is time to stop the war on able-bodied Americans. Able-bodied Americans drive this Nation, yet the law treats them like second-class citizens.

We must level the playing field. No more will we tolerate special advantages for senile amputees, deaf mutes, blind people or people on crutches. If you cannot physically do the job, forget about getting a job. And if you become disabled while on the job, well, too bad. We cannot all be so lucky to find a job, and if you get hurt while working, that was a risk you took. For too long, the law has placed the risk of work-related injury on the employer. This outmoded doctrine hearkens back to the communist workers’ movements of the 19th Century. But we must remember that it is 2008, not 1848. In today’s world, the worker should be grateful for his work, and that means he should bear the risk of any loss that comes from it. Employers have enough to worry about. They do not have the resources to indemnify workers who become ill, lose limbs or die on the job. When we reduce employers’ costs, we create jobs for able-bodied Americans. And when we do that, we invigorate our economy.

We do not have time to pity disabled people. Pity landed us in this mess in the first place. Advocates for the crippled say: “But for the grace of God go I.” They say that bad luck and circumstance can strike us all, and that any one of us may become disabled. They say that workers should not bear the ill effects of their misfortune. To this we respond: “Why shouldn’t they?” What makes it just to make employers pay for an employee’s misfortune? Yes, employers may create workplace risk, but employees are not robots. They have a duty to watch out for themselves. In many cases, employees sustain injury on the job because they were not paying attention. Why should the employer pay for an employee’s own carelessness? That is patently unjust; and it is too expensive. Able-bodied Americans are sick and tired of policies that cost jobs. That is why it is time to stop pandering to one-legged whiners. To injured workers, we say: “If you lose your leg, no job for you.”

America must focus on the citizens who drive the economy. If elected, we promise to restore faith in the able-bodied American worker. We promise to dismantle the legal castle that protects inefficient cripples and geriatric relics. We promise to restore employer discretion. When employers have discretion, they can lower costs. And when employers lower costs, they can hire more able-bodied Americans. We foresee a day when only able-bodied Americans will work. On that day, productivity will rule, not waste. No more will employers squander their capital on dead-weight employees who produce nothing. Our critics call us callous. We say that cruelty has nothing to do with it. In economic questions, there is only one inquiry: Are there more pluses than minuses? Today, pandering to the disabled represents a choking “minus” on employers. By eliminating that minus, we guarantee that the pluses will prevail. And when the pluses prevail, able-bodied Americans can work without fear, enriching the entire Nation.

Let us stand together against cripples, weaklings, amputees and tired Alzheimer’s sufferers. Let us proclaim with one voice: “You will not take our jobs!” In the new day of American employment, performance will reign, not pity. We can afford no other course.