The Disease with Civil Liberties
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1994 <8/21>

      Recently I was E-mailing with some gays on a conference on AIDS that I follow for technical information. I am quite interested in the disease and its implications and have been since 1981 or so. I rarely contribute but some message got my political sense up and I responded.
      To make a long story short my comments bothered some people and I was advised to get to know someone with AIDS to "put a face on the disease." I have not been able to do that as yet but I did something similar. I talked with a social worker who deals with many of them and with every other type of person in need of social benefits.
      So I learned a few things about how social benefits are handed out.
      For example old people, generally women, most always someone's mother, who can not take care of themselves. They are so far gone at times they can not keep out of their own feces and urine. For these people it is an up hill fight to get them any benefits.
      On the other hand if one has AIDS under the current definition (and under the previous two definitions) ALL benefits federal, state and local are essentially automatic. This is full range of social security, Medicaid including in home care, subsidized housing, food stamps, you name it, they get it.
      But there is a difference these people do not have to be incapacitated in fact they usually are not. They usually do not show signs of the disease. In fact they are often spending their time as AIDS activists seeking greater benefits.
      Why are they not working? Gee, everyone knows the prejudice of employers and or course it is good for the taxpayers to fund a life of ease and unemployment. It is free money.
      Does anyone have to ask about the reason the employer prejudice is emphasized? When the prejudice is unquestioned they get the full range of benefits without showing the slighest symptom or having the least disability.
      Now lets back up to the people who will not ask for services for themselves. They almost have to be forced into it by social workers and then the social worker has the uphill fight to get them the care they need. These people are old, feeble, retired, fixed income, no prospects for improvement. They are in the greatest need of all and yet they do not qualify.
      Listen up folks. These people may be your parents if you can not visit them and find out what life is really like for them. In our extended families and lack of close contact this can be anyone's parent or relative. And yet what do they get from our social systeM? About as little as possible.
      However, AIDS is a politically correct disease with its own special protections and special drawing rights upon the welfare system that are unquestioned. Next time you see an activist and wonder how he has the time off of work remember, he most likely is not working and is living off of the social welfare system.
      The government is subsidizing the activists. And while they are living off of the system they are demanding MORE benefits from the system. Wake up folks. If they show up at a mid day press conference to disrupt it, someone else is paying their expenses in life whether they are paid by some group to be an activist or they are being underwritten by taxpayers is something that has to asked.
      Do we really intend that people with no disabilities but who satisfy a definition should get everything while others get nothing or only a fraction? I am talking in home nursing that runs $2000 a month when they are perfectly able to get to a clinic. Subsidized housing, food stamps, SSI, Medicaid, every benefit they might possibly qualify for, volunteered for them rather than their having to demonstrate need. And all without any real disability.
      And compared to the truly needy who get next to nothing without a struggle ... who is this system protecting and why is AIDS a privileged disease?