Michael Savage under Fire (again)

[pam]

Media Matters has been on the attack over Michael Savage's recent comments on autism.

I don't know very much about autism but I thought I would put this up for a comments, I am hoping he doesn't get fired over this one, I do enjoy his show.

Quote and a link-Pam

Summary: On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is "[a] fraud, a racket. ... I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, 'Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

Media Matters Article

[eriatarka]

Thats an extremely dumb thing to say, to be fair. If he had qualified it by specifically referring to high-functioning autism or other autistic spectrum diagnoses such as Aspergers then it would be marginally less stupid, but as it stands, it seems obvious that hes no idea what he's talking about and was just trying to provoke a reaction (which he has, so well done I guess).

Edited July 22, 2008 by eriatarka

[TheEgoist]

What a worm this Savage is. Saying Autism is a racket and Liberalism is a mental disease - not the sayings of a rational person. I know people who have had to deal with autistic children, and I doubt this slimeball would speak of such things in front of them because he is a coward and an old bitter man.

[Fireball]

http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/?pageId=1126

From Dr. Savage:

My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label too many children or adults as "autistic."

Just as some drug companies have overdiagnosed "ADD" and "ADHD" to peddle dangerous speed-like drugs to children as young as 4 years of age, this cartel of doctors and drug companies is now creating a national panic by overdiagnosing "autism, for which there is no definitive medical diagnosis!

Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an "illness" which may not exist, in all cases. Just a few weeks ago doctors recommended dangerous anti-cholesterol drugs for children as young as 2 years of age! Without any scientific studies on the possible dangers of such drugs on children, corrupt doctors made this controversial, unscientific recommendation.

Increasingly, our children are being used as profit centers by a greedy, corrupt medical/pharmaceutical establishment. As the brother of a severely disabled person who suffered and died in a New York "snake-pit" of a "mental hospital," I know first-hand what true disability is.

To permit greedy doctors to include children in medical categories which may not be appropriate is a crime against that child and their family. Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free.

Michael Savage

[KevinDW78]

I can see where he is coming from. I am only 30 years old, yet I clearly remember that none of these things seemed to exist when I was a kid. It has only been recently with the onslaught of liberal PC-ism that "ADD" and to a lesser degree "autism" came about. When I was younger, the only thing we knew of autism was that the movie Rainman was about it. His point listed above about "overdiagnosis" is right on the mark in my opinion. I am not that old yet when we kids "acted up" we got a whack on the bottom and that shut us right up. Parents and teachers these days are too concerned with being "friends" with their children instead of being parents.

[K-Mac]

Saying Autism is a racket and Liberalism is a mental disease - not the sayings of a rational person.

I'm not sure about the autism stuff, but his clarification, posted by Fireball, seems to make sense. I agree that too many children are being over diagnosed with medical problems. (My nephew was recently drugged because the government school he goes to thinks he needs to be.)

Also, he says liberalism is a mental disorder not disease. (I think it's the title of his book.) But I don't think he means classic liberalism...he means what the far left in this country believe. I suppose living by a bad philosophy is a mental disorder, or could at least lead to one, but he needs to lump more than liberals in this country into that category!

[TheEgoist]

I can see where he is coming from. I am only 30 years old, yet I clearly remember that none of these things seemed to exist when I was a kid. It has only been recently with the onslaught of liberal PC-ism that "ADD" and to a lesser degree "autism" came about. When I was younger, the only thing we knew of autism was that the movie Rainman was about it. His point listed above about "overdiagnosis" is right on the mark in my opinion. I am not that old yet when we kids "acted up" we got a whack on the bottom and that shut us right up. Parents and teachers these days are too concerned with being "friends" with their children instead of being parents.

Just because you didn't hear of it doesn't mean it didn't always exist. Some kids ARE just hyperactive, and that hyperactivity should be harnessed for good. But ADD is legitimate in SOME children, and Autism surely is.

Perhaps before the days of the PC all these kids were just lumped in as " Retards ".

[KevinDW78]

Just because you didn't hear of it doesn't mean it didn't always exist.

That's not what I said. I said "seemed to exist" there's a BIG difference.

[Marty McFly]

As a former teacher (in a private school - but still) I can testify that most of these "ADHD" kids are just regular kids who don't get enough sleep -watch TV until midnight- and don't eat nutritious food

[K-Mac]

Or, as in the case of my nephew, they just aren't challenged. He didn't want to color the letter "J" in government kindergarten because he did that two years ago in private preschool.

[Jake]

As a former teacher (in a private school - but still) I can testify that most of these "ADHD" kids are just regular kids who don't get enough sleep -watch TV until midnight- and don't eat nutritious food

I agree - You can also add "don't get enough exercise" to that list.

[D'kian]

Autism is a real disorder which makes life difficult for those whos suffer from it and their families.

But the current notion of an "Autism Spectrum" pretty much places a lot of otherwise normal children, and teens, with minor problems into a category of mental disorders. That's a fraud and it is right to point it out.

For better info check out Thomas Sowell's editorials on the subject. He can be found at townhall.com and at capmag.com

[Mammon]

A dumb person saying a dumb thing? Never! I've known plenty of kids with autism, they were about as far from normal as you could imagine, and they had good loving parents.

His follow up comments are just examples of him pulling out of thin air to defend himself. He should of said those things first, or even just said nothing but those things. But, nope, he had to say something stupid!

[themadkat]

I will be the first to agree that too many kids today are diagnosed as sick or abnormal when they are no such thing. We have excessively narrowed the definition of what "normal" child behavior is. And I am very opposed to putting a child on medication in any but the most dire circumstances. That said, autism is very real. My sister has it and it has been extremely difficult to grow up with that kind of disability in the house. I love my sister very much and she is a great person but it is heartbreaking to see what could have been were she cognitively normal. She is perfectly intelligent, even above average in some respects, but her different ways of interpreting and processing information and her total lack of social ability hold her back so much and make it doubtful whether she can actually live a normal life on her own. She is in the difficult predicament of the high-functioning autistic: intelligent and quick to learn in some respects but with significant impairments in others.

Autism is nothing to make light of and Savage is an idiot. I don't think he should be fired or taken off the air or anything like that...the best strategy for dealing with things like this is to confront the person directly with facts and prove that they are full of crap. This could be done through any major media outlet or even more virally through blogs, etc.

[agrippa1]

A dumb person saying a dumb thing? Never! I've known plenty of kids with autism, they were about as far from normal as you could imagine, and they had good loving parents.

His follow up comments are just examples of him pulling out of thin air to defend himself. He should of said those things first, or even just said nothing but those things. But, nope, he had to say something stupid!

Savage deals in hyperbole. His point is a valid one, and is aimed at protecting to falsely diagnosed as well as the actual autistic cases. You obviously don't listen to him and are commenting out of ignorance.

[Mammon]

Savage deals in hyperbole. His point is a valid one, and is aimed at protecting to falsely diagnosed as well as the actual autistic cases. You obviously don't listen to him and are commenting out of ignorance.

Anyone who says autism is about not having a father call their kid in idiot... is an idiot. But that's supposed to be hyperbole, not taken seriously? How come he didn't follow it up with something. He sounds serious to me, seriously retarded.

Edited July 23, 2008 by Mammon

[K-Mac]

These conservative talk radio hosts are frequently taken out of context. (Granted, even with the full context, I disagree with their positions many times, but to be fair, their comments should at least be given with full context.) Unless you heard the whole show or the entire rant about autism, I think you should give the host the benefit of the doubt. His clarification makes much better sense. I have not listened to Savage extensively, but I have listened to him enough to know that he wouldn't go around making fun of retarded people just for the sake of it. I figured there had to be a point in that rant somewhere, and sure enough, there was.

EDIT: BTW, for whatever it's worth, my favorite out-of-context liberal media moment was on the Rush Limbaugh show. He played a parody of Barack the Magic Negro to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon. The media grabbed it and ran with it to illustrate that Limbaugh is a racist, when in fact, Rush got the phrase, "Barack the Magic Negro" directly from an L.A. Times article written by a black reporter. The whole situation was hilarious and exposed the real racism practiced by some in the black community and the media.

Edited July 23, 2008 by K-Mac

[themadkat]

These conservative talk radio hosts are frequently taken out of context. (Granted, even with the full context, I disagree with their positions many times, but to be fair, their comments should at least be given with full context.) Unless you heard the whole show or the entire rant about autism, I think you should give the host the benefit of the doubt. His clarification makes much better sense. I have not listened to Savage extensively, but I have listened to him enough to know that he wouldn't go around making fun of retarded people just for the sake of it. I figured there had to be a point in that rant somewhere, and sure enough, there was.

EDIT: BTW, for whatever it's worth, my favorite out-of-context liberal media moment was on the Rush Limbaugh show. He played a parody of Barack the Magic Negro to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon. The media grabbed it and ran with it to illustrate that Limbaugh is a racist, when in fact, Rush got the phrase, "Barack the Magic Negro" directly from an L.A. Times article written by a black reporter. The whole situation was hilarious and exposed the real racism practiced by some in the black community and the media.

Even with the context I still don't agree there was any merit to his point. Autism is a very serious disorder and the sooner it is treated, intensively mind you, the better a chance that kid has. Beating around the bush doesn't ever help the kid. One of my friends used to babysit a lot of different children in the area. One of the boys was pretty obviously autistic and his parents were in total denial that anything was wrong with him. He must have been around 5 by this point and that's getting a little late to start therapy. My own family was in denial about the ways my sister was different for a long time, even though she ceased developing normally around the age of 18 months. It took an outsider to say, "Hey, you know, your kid is not maturing the way she should, you might have her evaluated." Granted this outsider was a knowledgeable family friend, I'm not suggesting any random interloper go along and say, "Hey, your bratty kid has autism!" (Although for what it's worth, my sister wasn't bratty at all when she showed her first symptoms. If anything she was withdrawn.) It is a lot easier to deny that anything is going on with your kid than face a very hard reality. To this day there is some level of denial in some of our close family members, especially in the older generation, and this unspoken assumption that she should just "be ok". I'm not autistic myself, but I do have some of the odd sensory issues that occasionally accompany autism, such as certain noises causing physical pain or disorientation, and let me tell you that if your sensory input just doesn't work the same way as everyone else's, you can't just up and "be ok". There are some very unfortunate autistic kids out there who will be in excruciating pain from a touch. The fact is that a lot of what makes the barrier between autistic folks and the rest of us so high is that we are operating from very different sensory contexts.

I'm not sure why some people are so eager to explain away Savage's comments just because he is a conservative talk show host. Wrong is wrong and stupid is stupid, and it doesn't matter whose mouth it is coming from.

[DavidOdden]

Savage deals in hyperbole.

Well, Savage is a fascist murderer who is single-handedly responsible for most of the decline of western civilization. What is really sinister about him is that he's a communist provocateur, out to deliver the US to his North Korean slave-masters though his incessant denigration of decent western moral values.

More or less.

[KevinDW78]

I think you are missing the point. Nobody is saying Autism isn't a REAL disorder or that it isn't serious. The point being made is that society has become hypocondriacs in regards to social disorders. EVERYBODY "has ADHD" these days. EVERYBODY "suffers from anxiety and depression". EVERYBODY is "bipolar". and EVERYBODY "has autism". (I am using exaggeration to illustrate a point. I don't literally mean "everybody"). But this is the mentality that has started sweeping American society the past 10+ years.

Edited July 23, 2008 by KevinDW78

[Toolboxnj]

This topic was brought up on CapMag recently by Dr. Sowell.

Certainly autism exists. I've seen it. But I also have to agree that it's a great way for special-ed teachers to milk the system and parents to get extra funding for educational needs. I also have to question Autism Speaks' statistic that 1 in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism. I think the figures are overblown to fearmonger adults that their children have a significant chance of being born autistic. I dunno...

It should also be known that Media Matters and Michael Savage have traded blows before. I would read Media Matters with care.

Edited July 23, 2008 by Toolboxnj

[DavidOdden]

I think you're missing the point that evading reality is fundamentally wrong.

[Mammon]

I'm not sure why some people are so eager to explain away Savage's comments just because he is a conservative talk show host. Wrong is wrong and stupid is stupid, and it doesn't matter whose mouth it is coming from.

I'm not sure why some people are so eager to explain away Savage's comments just because he is a conservative talk show host.

he is a conservative talk show host.

conservative talk show host

Because conservative talk show hosts are the bastions of everything right and good in the universe. They fight for pure morals, complete freedom and unrestrained ambition to do the good for the sake of the good; for truth, justice and the American way. Conserative talk show hosts are the most rational people on the planet. Conserative talk show hosts are poor victims of the evil liberal media, who's so big and powerful they can destroy anyone. Well, anyone beside conserative talk shot hosts, whose rational minds adhere to the purest of principles and reason, and who never diverge from reality -- only these men can stand up against the evil establishment who want gay people to be able to marry each other.

Where would our country be without these great men? Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Ben Franklin all listened to Savage, Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity... that's where they got the idea of America from! Even Ayn Rand listened to them! You'd know that if you weren't brainwashed by the evil liberal public education establishment!

You should listen to Savage, in all his wisdom. Tell you father to smack your sister and tell her to stop being an idiot! That's obviously what needs to happen! How could Savage be wrong?!

[adrock3215]

Savage is a complete wack job, although he can be comical at times. Like when he says the government should impose price controls on gasoline, because the high costs are driving small truckers ("the heart of America") out of business.

[Thales]

When it comes to an issue like that the question is what are the facts? So, what are the facts? This is something Sowell if very good at. This is what I love about him, he's always anchored in fact.