Shalafi
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Keep reading.
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NAD Files Disability Civil Rights Lawsuit against Netflix
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Keep reading.
I don't find a need to re-read it. Your tripe is uninspiring.
Wow. I hope Netflix wins this one. If Netflix was a public service, then I could see this being a problem but it is a private company if if they don't cater to a small percentage of the population then that small group of people can shove it.
Maybe I should go sue the countless car companies for failing to make their most expensive car affordable to a college student working a part time job. With the mentality behind this lawsuit I should be able to win.
Maybe I should go sue the countless car companies for failing to make their most expensive car affordable to a college student working a part time job. With the mentality behind this lawsuit I should be able to win.
Shalafi
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Your reading comprehension still isn't quite there yet, son.
I re-read your comments, this is the one that stood out the most:
That's all I need to know about you. Someone who would wish real life harm to an innocent third party over a difference of opinion on a website really is a Grade A douchebag.
I am legally blind, so I ride city buses. A lot. City buses are funded in part by the sales taxes I pay, at least in part, because fares can't come anywhere near meeting the bus budget. And I do pay a lot of taxes here. However. I do get a significantly reduced rate on the bus fare. Anyway, I'm a blind person, I use roads, and I pay taxes for the roads I use, so arguing about whether blind people should have to pay taxes for roads they don't use is irrelevant because it doesn't work that way.
Getting back to the original subject: I'm also severely deaf from birth. I'm not a Netflix customer and never was; I just buy DVDs. It's interesting to know that there's a good reason for me to not be a Netflix customer besides just not caring. I don't go to movie theatres anymore because the screens are too large (I have no peripheral vision at all) and I never did like them much because of the lack of captioning. I looked at the links in this thread about the movie theatres that are doing captioning; that would have been more interesting 20 years ago when I needed them.
Now, the whole argument about entitlement, which is what this thread is really about: I was diagnosed with my progressive vision loss about three years ago, the same time I was laid off and the economy went into the crapper. I did some job interviewing, but a blind deaf guy in fields of 40+ candidates... well. Before my diagnosis, I worked full time for 20 years and paid a lot of social security taxes, so entitlement is not what I feel towards the disability pay that I'm collecting. But I know at my age that I'll probably ultimately take out more than I put in, so I still feel an obligation, so I volunteer at a local hospital.
Some of the disabled feel an amount of entitlement that seems distasteful to me. Others do what they can to contribute back to society. It's not so black and white as some in this thread are making it out to be - on either side.
Getting back to the original subject: I'm also severely deaf from birth. I'm not a Netflix customer and never was; I just buy DVDs. It's interesting to know that there's a good reason for me to not be a Netflix customer besides just not caring. I don't go to movie theatres anymore because the screens are too large (I have no peripheral vision at all) and I never did like them much because of the lack of captioning. I looked at the links in this thread about the movie theatres that are doing captioning; that would have been more interesting 20 years ago when I needed them.
Now, the whole argument about entitlement, which is what this thread is really about: I was diagnosed with my progressive vision loss about three years ago, the same time I was laid off and the economy went into the crapper. I did some job interviewing, but a blind deaf guy in fields of 40+ candidates... well. Before my diagnosis, I worked full time for 20 years and paid a lot of social security taxes, so entitlement is not what I feel towards the disability pay that I'm collecting. But I know at my age that I'll probably ultimately take out more than I put in, so I still feel an obligation, so I volunteer at a local hospital.
Some of the disabled feel an amount of entitlement that seems distasteful to me. Others do what they can to contribute back to society. It's not so black and white as some in this thread are making it out to be - on either side.
The corruption you want to highlight which has been pointed out are done by individual lawyers who see a quick payday for themselves and shake them down and they still comply with the laws themselves. US Attorney's on the other hand do not which they enforce the law when complaints are brought forth before them and they do not make any money off it. These "fees" regarding handicap access enforced by the US Attorney's end up going to the back to the companies themselves to pay for the upgrades to their building codes. Whereas blatant discrimination ie being ridiculed for ordering on a napkin, not being hired because they're blind/deaf/what have you even though they can do the job is unacceptable and they should be punished heavily.
Yes, it was voluntary at first because that was the law that was coming forth. Construction codes then were modified because of the law. There are some that do not take them into consideration. Now, you cannot discriminate on the basis of a disability. Things tend to change people's minds over time and they become more compassionate and understanding of one's shortcomings and even work to accommodate them. If accommodation is unreasonable for them, they can be exempted from doing so ie hiring an interpreter so that they can communicate when the profit margin is very small is unreasonable whereas assigning another person to take phone calls is not. The situations varies on a case by case basis. You are not involved with these cases yourself so you rely on shows (Penn & Teller especially they're libertarians "FUCK YOU GOT MINE") to argue this for you.
You say yourself that you support equal access to certain things which you are still marginalizing them.
That's the problem. Your attitude with the whole pro-private property rights is unacceptable. You are suggesting that businesses should have the legal rights to discriminate on the basis of something that defines a person whether on their skin color, their shortcomings, etc. You argue that you do not want to go out of your way to make things extra special which you are now admitting you will intentionally discriminate against people with disability and other characteristic features although the law (The ADA, Civil Rights Act, and lots of other laws) says otherwise against your personal feelings. These people did grow a pair, they struggled and worked hard to put themselves where they are and they are still being ignored, ridiculed, and even harmed themselves. http://www.ada.gov/enforce.htm
I suggest you start cluing yourself to this page before you start breaking the law.
http://www.ada.gov/ada.html
In retrospect, I'd be suprised if this hasn't been attempted before... if not, it will be at some point...
Personally, I like subtitles, especially if it means the option to watch foreign films in their native language with english subs.
But this is just ridiculous...
I could just as easily say your attitude that I should be forced to make up for other peoples shortcomings is unacceptable. No positions are unacceptable, I'm free to think and feel how I like, I won't be guilted into submission to conform to your view. You need to present other arguments outside of, "it's not nice" (in summation), for me to consider your argument valid.
You clearly don't understand the definition of the word 'discriminate'.
Here, I'll help you.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discriminate
When a business offers the exact same services to *everybody*, it's not discrimination. By making the exact same service available to everybody, they are completely avoiding discrimination, everybody gets exactly the same thing no special considerations come into ti in any way. I can guarantee that no business is motivated to give handicapped people hardships, businesses exist to make money, not torment or ridicule people.
The ones that bitch about it are weak mentally and in determination. Shit, I'd strongly consider trading my hearing away over what I went through growing up. I'll take no hearing over living inner city poverty, mental and physical (you figure that one out) abuse, and a "family" that doesn't give a shit any fucking day of the week. Oh, because I'm white and not black, I was also discriminated against heavily and constantly in danger of assault as well (try being a white person in the hood). I'm pretty sure I faced way more discrimination that someone whining about a sink being a half an inch too fucking high. I joined the military so I could actually afford an education and get the fuck out of there. If I had the opportunity, I'd trade away my hearing to never experience any of that.
What do you say to those who have all of what you had AND are disabled, so they don't even have the military option that you did to work themselves out of it? Those are the people that the ADA is protecting.
Of course the ADA gets abused by some who feel too much entitlement. Those people are jerks who would be jerks even if they were fully able. That doesn't mean the ADA isn't necessary, and it doesn't mean that all or even most of the disabled behave that way. I certainly don't.
Well buddy, that's where you're wrong. My entire spine is metal, I'm disabled so I don't pay taxes.
And every blind person I know is on disability so they don't pay taxes either.
I think he is saying that businesses have the legal right to offer ANY service of theirs as they see fit. Its somewhere along the lines of me offering an awesome room cleaning service but within only 5 minutes walking distance from my residence and then getting sued for not offering it 5.5 or 6 minutes away. I mean, its not that hard for me to walk an extra mile (or offering subtitles) so I should have to do it anyways right?\
Maybe a quadriplegic should sue netflix for not coming to their house and setting up the service for them.
Had a long response to this, but the cat jumped up and farked it up.
So, cliffs:
Blind people don't drive (i hope), so NO they don't pay taxes for the roads they don't get to use. That comes from gas tax. State gas tax: 1/3 goes to education, 2/3 go to general transportation fund. Rest comes from federal gas tax. May very from state to state a little.
Had a long response to this, but the cat jumped up and farked it up.
So, cliffs:
Blind people don't drive (i hope), so NO they don't pay taxes for the roads they don't get to use. That comes from gas tax. State gas tax: 1/3 goes to education, 2/3 go to general transportation fund. Rest comes from federal gas tax. May very from state to state a little.
Secondly, every blind person I know is on disability so again, NO, they don't pay taxes. And blind people work you say? How? A full forty hours? I doubt it. Part time maybe, which means, again, NO, they don't pay very much in the way of taxes. In fact they get a tax credit:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/it/credits/blind-credit.html
You show me actual facts and statistics showing how much the blind work and pay in taxes. I looked a bit, there isn't much out there. So you basically pulling shit out of your ass because you are biased.
So you can continue on arguing with no facts and being completely wrong, and saying you're more intelligent than me, and saying I ride the short but, and the rest of us will just sit back and laugh at you.
Oh, and like I mentioned before, I'm disabled. So it's not like I'm against anyone getting help because they have a medical condition they didn't create by themselves. What I am saying is you have ZERO right to sue a private company to waste tons of money on a miniscule portion of the population. It makes you selfish and arrogant. But that's typical of Americans nowadays, isn't it.
You'd guess wrong. And maybe you should lay low yourself before I report the post where you imply I ride the short bus. and how you're "obviously" more intelligent than me. Hypocrite.
And I'm not badmouthing everyone. I agree with a bunch of people in this thread. I only call our hypocrites who argue, while being ignorant of the facts, and at the same time insist they are more intelligent then everyone else.
Maybe you should read your own article before posting it and thinking you win. Here:
showing that federal gas taxes cover barely half the costs of building and maintaining roads
Covers barley half the costs. So, what this is saying is that YES, gas tax covers almost half building and maintaining roads. And this is just talking about the FEDERAL government. And like I said, 2/3rds of the state gas tax goes to roads.
So you're way off, again.
Next:
Federal gasoline taxes were originally intended for debt relief, not roads.
Over the last 63 years, highways, roads and streets have received more than $600 billion in subsidies in excess of the amount raised through gasoline taxes.
The tax was originally meant for debt, but guess what? It's being used for roads. Another site suggests 70 cents out of every dollar of the fed gas tax goes back to the states for roads. You do the math.
So, to sum up, you posted the first link you could find on google, got a report that may or may not be "massaged" to fit what the people doing the report wanted it to say, and you don't understand what it says because it admits gas tax go to roads, a LOT of it.
Nice try.
WRONG. Again, I'm on disability so I KNOW. When on disablity you can make up to $1000 a month and not a dollar over. This is such a small amount you get a refund for most, if not all, the federal tax you paid on it.
Again, you just argue away and are completly clueless as to what you're talking about. And you're arrogant about it too.
Report his post. He should be banned. He already broke the rules and called me names.
You just got so owned by him. He even quoted the post where you impled what you insist you didn't. Then you are trying to tell him, and me that we have bad reading comprehension?
Maybe it's more a case of you not being able to get your point across in a clear fashion.
Joe Average
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Boomstick: You can do multiple-quote posts... 
His attitude is just fine. People like you are the ones with the problem. If a person owns a private business they should be able to server and not serve whoever they want, PERIOD.
Just because it's "the law" doesn't mean it's right. You and the rest of the libs need to re-read the definition of private.
Boomstick: You can do multiple-quote posts...
Sorry, I tried that but the stupid cat keeps harrassing me for attention
"libs"? That's very funny considering you don't even know what I believe in and etc. By the way, the law is the law and that's your opinion if it's not right. If you have standing, be my guest and try to take it furthur than your district judges. They will strike you down so hard and you wasted your time. Especially you will come off as a bigot. Sure businesses can serve whomever they want within reasons but they cannot use excuses by what is forbidden under law.
But the problem is I used to work for a business which they were lying to deaf people that whatever needs they had in order to make a sale. The Bridgemaxx Wireless Internet were sold with a contract which they saw fit to do so under their own determination. The problem was this one Deaf woman who depended on the Sorensen VRS to communicate with other Deaf people over the internet. They repeatedly assured her that it would work fine and so she agreed to purchase their internet service with their equipment provided. Unfortunately after she found out that her equipment did not work with Bridgemaxx since they uniformly blocked alot of the ports that were necessary for the Sorensen equipment to work. She had to request to cancel it when they lied to her that it would work. They kept standing by their sale and refused to comply and threatened to use termination fees ($150 fee) against her. I told my boss who sold her the contract since he was a 3rd party vendor to cancel her contract immediately and he said no because he's only a reseller. I told him I didn't care and I will file a complaint on behalf of this woman to the US District Attorney against him and Bridgemaxx. He canceled it because he stood to lose like $20 in commission, oh god the horror of this amount of money.
My point is that businesses seeing however they want to conduct their business as they see fit does not make it right under the laws that protects people with disabilities.
Now your example is irrelevant since you haven't made a sale yet and have reasonable restrictions of how you want to conduct your business. Whereas Netflix lies to people on their public blog claiming that they do have subtitles for more than 30% of their (U.S.) movies and will have up to 80% by the end of this year. So people buy into it and find out that it was a lie so they end up cancelling and can't get their money back. As a result, they keep doing this practice on playing the game that they're still supporting subtitles rather than coming out with the truth that this might be about licensing issues. If they had told NAD and the other advocate organizations in the first place, this wouldn't be a problem and in fact they would have assisted Netflix in getting licensing fees renegotiated since they do have experience with this. But of course they chose the easier route and continued on lying.
I don't hate Netflix. I just wish they would produce subtitles as promised 4 years ago. Regardless, I have DVD/Blu-ray delivery accounts, so meh, whatever.
I'm siding with NAD not because I want taxpayers to pay the bill. No sane person wants more tax or more reason to pay taxes - we're not that stupid. I support them because Netflix needs a kick in the NADs (heh heh heh) for breaking their promise.
We can agree to disagree but that's just my opinion and that's that.
And Boomstick, me lay low? I've done nothing wrong. Plus Steve loves me. You know why? It's cuz I'm so very pretty. Welcome to the forum though. Seems like you'll bring interesting debates to the table.
DuronClocker
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I'm not going to lie. I'm going to be pretty pissed off if NAD wins and my $8/mo subscription goes up shortly after.
Joe Average
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Boy, have you got a lot to learn.
Like what?
Joe Average
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rat
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That's the whole reason for the lawsuit to begin with. Netflix promised subtitles/captioning on streaming features, didn't deliver, and still raised the price on all plans to accommodate the cost of streaming... Resulting in a higher cost without benefit for those who were unable to watch movies via streaming due to lack of captions.
Yes, because "whites only" is certainly allowed in this day and age. I'd like to see you try that.
"Libs"? Way to out yourself as a closet nutter.
let me start by saying that i do believe netflix should be providing subtitles on streaming content. as has been stated multiple times already the technology is available, and other services already provide them.
i do not however believe that NAD has a valid argument. no one has a right to watch netflix with subtitles or without. they offer a service. if you are unhappy with the service you can choose to take your business elsewhere. if someone with a seafood allergy (something they did not ask for/cannot control) goes to a seafood restaurant and asks for a chicken sandwich, should that restaurant have to give them a chicken sandwich that they do not have on the menu? if that person wants a chicken sandwich they should go to the chicken restaurant next door to get their food.
you should....
avoid places/companies that do not provide the service you want.
give your business to those that do.
or even start your own subtitled streaming service.
if you include people with any hearing loss, then 22 out of every 1000 people are deaf. based on q1 2011 netflix had 23.6 million subscribers worldwide. if the ratios hold up that means there are 519,200 deaf subscribers. if each one pays $8/month that is $49,843,200/year in revenue from netflix. If they all cancelled I'm pretty sure that netflix would quickly implement the ability to use subtitles. that is a lot of business to lose out on.
just to reiterate i do believe that netflix can easily include the option of subtitles, and should. i just think that there are better ways to handle the situation than to sue to get your way. in my opinion a boycott would be a much better option.
i do not however believe that NAD has a valid argument. no one has a right to watch netflix with subtitles or without. they offer a service. if you are unhappy with the service you can choose to take your business elsewhere. if someone with a seafood allergy (something they did not ask for/cannot control) goes to a seafood restaurant and asks for a chicken sandwich, should that restaurant have to give them a chicken sandwich that they do not have on the menu? if that person wants a chicken sandwich they should go to the chicken restaurant next door to get their food.
you should....
avoid places/companies that do not provide the service you want.
give your business to those that do.
or even start your own subtitled streaming service.
if you include people with any hearing loss, then 22 out of every 1000 people are deaf. based on q1 2011 netflix had 23.6 million subscribers worldwide. if the ratios hold up that means there are 519,200 deaf subscribers. if each one pays $8/month that is $49,843,200/year in revenue from netflix. If they all cancelled I'm pretty sure that netflix would quickly implement the ability to use subtitles. that is a lot of business to lose out on.
just to reiterate i do believe that netflix can easily include the option of subtitles, and should. i just think that there are better ways to handle the situation than to sue to get your way. in my opinion a boycott would be a much better option.
Joe Average
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One question: have you read the thread? All of it? Did you take note of post 95 where I explained why Netflix can't just flip a switch and make it happen for every title they stream?
It's not a technological issue as clarified in post 104 as well... there's a lot more going on than your perception is picking up on.
You know. I just noticed this post and you mentioned that you were able to get out of your situation by joining into the military. Good for you! Unfortunately for the people that you are ridiculing especially people like myself, we do not have the military as an option at all. No matter what, recruiters will reject us out of hand because we would be immediately declared 4F. I've known plenty of Deaf kids who wanted to join the military and could not. Some of them did what they could to the closest thing in the civilian arena like CAP (Civil Air Patrol) which they are not compensated for their service at all. Of course this is not reasonable to do over a long period of time since CAP has an age limit which the cut off is 21. So what are their alternatives after that? So I'm all ears (hehe I made a funny here!) on what your suggestions would be? They can go to school and take out loans and pell grants if qualified under 23, they have to compete against students with no disabilities without regards for how much of a disadvantage they have like poor GPA due to frustrating communication barriers but they can never get the GI Bill like you did, The best case scenario thankfully the last couple years is hoping that their parents served in the military and did not use the GI Bill which the cut off is still 25. My father still serves in the USAF and when the law was amended to allow children to use, I already was 25 but I have two younger brothers so due to their age, they were in a better position to use it especially one can still only get 4 years total (4 % 2 = 2 years per person), no more.
And you know what, you don't ever want to trade away your hearing since I already experience that myself. Starting at 18 months having to learn how to talk and hear with frustrating results, having to learn how to enunciate constantly in my head and make sure I got my words right, being mocked all of my youth on how I talked when I fucked up my s's, r's, ch's, etc or even slurred my words unintentionally. Or even left out of groups, social conversations, etc because people get so fucking fearful they might have to work extra hard to socialize! Or employment wise, get fired because employers are unwilling to help readjust their business practices and even if they did like assigning phone calls to another worker BUT when the person responsible for making phone calls don't make them, the disabled gets blamed because it looks like their assignments aren't getting processed out and then they get fired for it.
Yet you want to trade all that away like it's no big deal to be Deaf, hard of hearing or even hearing-impaired? Hey, at least you got a life experience without all the discrimination and frustration.
It's a matter of perspective. I still would trade it. If you think all of my problems are "over" just because I was able to overcome poverty you're wrong. There's a whole host of other shit that goes with it. Example, I have major problems even trying to keep a relationship going because I have massive trust issues. I guess when you grow up and everyone around you, including family, fucks you over, it happens. It's not like I can just change it either, it's like some deeply rooted subconscious thing. It's so unnerving from me that I get physically ill when put in a situation where trust is involved, like butterflies in the stomach, but a lot worse. It's weird, it even effects little mundane things like getting on a bus, I really can't handle it. The only people I ever really trusted were the guys with me in the service, and that's it, and even then I was slightly skeptical, though they likely deserved more. I'd probably be a decent father, but I'd be a real shitty husband.
The thing is your level of "discrimination" was vastly different than what I was exposed to, to the point where I wouldn't consider a little laughing at discrimination. You also had a family to back you up (it sounds like), I didn't The idea that the soap dispenser being an inch too high, and worth suing someone for thousands of dollars is ludicrous, and unless you can prove it was done to harm someone (lol?), isn't discrimination. Do you really think a business person who wants sales is going to say, "Gee, I know how I can really fuck with them, I'll put the soap dispenser juuuuuust out of reach, haha!"? You want to know what discrimination is? It's getting your ass jumped by a group of black kids on the way home from school just because you're white. Not because you did anything wrong to them, but just because you're white. I'm pretty sure nobody cornered and kicked the shit out of you because they hated you because you were deaf.
I could go on, but my point is, just because I worked hard to improve my situation, doesn't mean it's all sunshine and rainbows. The dark clouds of my childhood still produce vicious storms. I've already gone through way more crap than most people, and to me the idea that I should be bending over backwards and paying to resolve other peoples problems when they don't have it half as bad as I did is just absurdly ridiculous. Nobody gave a shit about me or offered assistance, and now you want my help? Get the hell out of here. The one lesson I've really learned in life is that the only person that cares about you is yourself, quit trying to pass off your difficulties on someone else, just man up and handle them because nobody else is going to ever care as much about yourself as you do.
I'm not going to argue with you. If you think swishing private property rights so certain groups don't get their feelings hurt then your way past being able to have a debate with.
And a closet nutter? Lol. Libs is a perfectly acceptable term covering those who would like to see the following done (list is not complete, would take years)
-Ban guns
-Tax those who work and spread it around to those who choose not to
-Would ban anything that hurts others' feelings
-Who claim to be the most tolerant except if you don't agree with them. Then they call you every name in the book instead of being tolerant of your view. You know, hypocrites.
-think there is no problem with illegal aliens pouring into the country all the while insisting they pay into the system than they take out even though every statistic and fact points out they cost hundreds of billions and don't pay anywhere near that amount in.
-see no problem with the ever expanding police state
-are hypocrites
-eradicate the notion of personal responsibility.
Did I mention they are hypocrites?
See? People who are crazy and don't live in reality.
I had no idea what you were going on about regarding soap dispenser since the connection has nothing to do with the deaf. I can see where you're going on about considering the brief is about a West Virginia municipal football stadium, a public facility owned by the public, agreed to install accessible bathrooms for the handicapped, nowhere in the brief demanded settlements
Since that was the only example that I could find regarding your beef, you wasted alot of time arguing your point about soap dispensers at a public facility rather than private of all things. There is this private facility too though which didn't have accessible bathrooms and they installed without monetary settlements too
So those three examples are the only ones that you got regarding your beef with soap dispenser. If that's the basis of your argument, it's a bad one. Your circumstance regarding being a white person in a very racial neighborhood is very isolated and not common at all whereas discrimination based on disability encompasses through multiple barriers whether racial, class, location based, etc. Hence the point of the ADA protecting these people that do not have the same opportunities as you did joining the military.
Now that's a step in the right direction...
Hogwash.
My only point was that this thread will go no where. This subject matter in regards to Netflix has been posted here before and the same thing happened. People that had an interest in subtitles usually were on one side and those that believed Netflix should not be required to provide are on the other. What ensued was constant bickering and silly arguments.
This thread is just a repeat.
rat
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Fixed that for you. Can't wait until you're old enough to be demanding more than your share of entitlements because fuck everyone else and what they deserve, you've got yours and you don't care how you'll get it. You'll probably end up just like your queen did. http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/14...l_security_and_medicare_when_she_needed_them/