Chapter 4 - A Hidden Army for Civil Rights

This was probably my favorite chapter in the book so far. I liked this chapter because of how it was set up and because of what took place. This book is really starting to change my train of thought with disabled people. At first, I didn't like how they were comparing their own movement and their own struggle to those of the civil rights activists. However, this chapter put that statement into a better perspective for me and I think I'm starting to understand what they meant.

The big thing for me about this book is that I have never heard anything about the struggle for disabled rights, the legislation that took place, or the people that put the legislation into motion. One reason could be that I was 6 or 7 when this all started to take place in the Bush administration, and I had more important things on my mind like learning to write in cursive and wondering what I would get for Christmas. But even after that in my history classes in high school, we never talked about this history. We covered women's rights and civil rights but never anything about disabled rights. I think this is the case because people take for granted what it used to be like compared to where it is now.

One thing that I really liked about this chapter was what was said to Vice President Bush in the meetings to prevent the upheaval of Section 504. They wanted to be self-reliant. I think that is such a huge step forward for anyone because I'm in full support of getting people to a state of self-reliance and a removal from a dependence on the government for everything. I believe the government is best used to turn people in that direction, not to be relied on forever. Another good quote was "I want to be a taxpayer, not a tax user." If more Americans would think like that it would remove a great deal of government waste and spending and return America to its greatest years of 1981-1988.