We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

[Zorra]

103. The expectation negates free will when we are forced to do things we don't want to do, and

have no other options.

With DD individuals, like everyone else, every person is different. What one person can do, another can't. Some cannot work. I've had cases where participants were severely and horribly abused in institutions from early childhood. Some people simply, for whatever reason, cannot work. What we try to do under these circumstances is provide choices for healthy activities tailored to those individuals needs that they can do, and be happy doing.

There is an extreme focus on a certain type of work, on "earning a living" institutionalized into this judeo-christian capitalist culture, that not every culture has had institutionalized into it. This institutionalized focus usually arises from a concept known as the "Protestant Work Ethic":

The Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work ethic) is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that hard work and frugality are a result of a person's salvation in the Protestant faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

In contrast, other cultures may have different value systems:

“My young men shall never work. Men who work cannot dream; and wisdom comes to us in dreams. You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men. But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?” ~ Smohalla

Of course, native peoples in North America got their sustenance directly from the land at the time, and white folks and their cultural family values later finished killing off all the ways that indigenous people here got their food, and now, some fully expect Native Americans to tow the line and pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get with the white program of subservience to white systems.

The same goes to some extant for the descendants of former slaves who were stolen from their tribal homelands in Africa or other places.

My point here, the viewing the world in terms of the Protestant Work Ethic is only one way to be. If that is your way, fine, I have no problem with that. Just don't try to force it on me, because I have a different belief system.

I would rather cut any DD folks who need it some slack. I would much pay taxes for those folks to have a happy, healthy life doing things they like, rather than paying taxes to coerce someone into doing something they hate and makes the entirety of their existence miserable and screaming, because of some white people belief system that grew out of some weird religious beliefs.

I agree with both mission statements. While I see your point about the Arizona Mission Statement, we have one of the lowest percentages of DD folks living in institutions in the US.

Arizona’s disability services rank 1st

http://www.azcentral.com/news/arizona/articles/20130502arizonas-disability-services-rank-1st.html

Choices, options, I like them; and I want others to have them too, according to their ability and need.

Thanks for what you do, Jeff.