[at-l] the rest of the story . . . (I reckon I'm breaking mypromise not to post again, too!)

[icw at esisnet.com (Clark Wright)]

Well, i just stumbled on the response made by Wendy, and I have to say 
that the level of my disappointment is high - the whole purpose of my 
two prior posts has been to try and use real world experiences to make 
the point that there is often more to the story and situation than we 
want to admit, and that assuming the worst, or some black and white 
perspective, can sometimes be just flat wrong.  At the same time, I am a 
huge believer in personal responsibility - the key is to find a way to 
punish the bad actions, while at the same time resisting visceral 
response impulses and then, longer term, trying to use an appropriate 
level of empathy and caution in judging or labelling the whole person.

Wendy, why did you immediately assume the worst re my diabetic client? 
What factual information was it in my post that led you to conclude that 
my client was unable to control his disease?  If you have a serious 
enough case of diabetes to require multiple injections each day, I think 
  it is just about impossible not to have a few incidences in a lifetime 
of insulin treatments where you potentially can have a significant 
insulin reaction - just as a supposedly "normal" and "responsible" 
person can screw up a few times in a lifetime and thereby end up in 
various accidents.

There seems to be an "assume the worst" affliction suffered by some who 
have commented on the recent threads.  I know all about that tendency - 
in a real way, that is all lawyers do for a living!  But doing it 
intellectually to cover all the bases is one thing, but assuming the 
worst case scenario as fact in reply posts is quite another.  As to the 
specifics here, I rhetorically now ask Wendy:  Did my post indicate 
whether my diabetic client had a history of being unable to control his 
blood sugar levels?  No, it did not have any information on that issue, 
other than the obvious fact that it had happened at least once.  Yet 
based on that slender reed of a single incidence, you built an entire 
house of assumptions - just the kind of reaction I was trying to gently 
suggest to others to try and avoid.  [I reckon the sweet smell of irony 
envelopes me once again! :)]  The whole point of my post was to use 
diabetes - the very disease rogene earlier tried to say was so different 
than alcoholism in terms of its ability to affect others - to make the 
point that even diabetics can - in rare but documentable circumstances - 
present a fatal danger potential to other people.  To me, there is much 
less of a distinction between the two diseases than perhaps first 
impressions would leave in this respect.  My even more fundamental point 
was that there often are additional dimensions to a situation than first 
meet the eye.  I hoped to strike a chord of open-mindedness re not 
knowing all the facts - a chord that you promptly stomped on with both 
feet by assuming the worst, and making a brand NEW assumption over that.

The fact of the matter is that all charges against my diabetic client 
were dropped after it became clear that he was a responsible person who 
simply had one, aberrational morning where his insulin levels got a bit 
out of line.  I worked a deal with the district attorney to have all 
charges dropped (he also had been charged with hit and run, and 
resisting arrest!) in exchange for placement of a medical rider on his 
driver's license; that rider would serve to both to alert future law 
enforcement officials to his medical condition [and, yes, to forestall 
yet another round of negative assumptions, he had all the usual diabetic 
ID stuff, but his final collision with a tree and fence was violent 
enough to fling his wallet and ID bracelet onto the floor of his pickup 
truck, where the police missed seeing them during the critical next 
hours] - and to document his driving record so that if this ever 
happened again, DMV would have a medical reason to suspend or revoke his 
driver's license.  Contrary to Wendy's negative assumptions, I'd say 
that this was a good example of how justice and empathy can work together.

The other aspect of my client's story that bears further mention (to 
better illustrate the point that there often is more to the story than 
first meets the eye) is the fact that the local police who stopped him 
actually ended up physically abusing my client, and even beating his 
some; they, too, practiced the fine art of assuming too much - they 
thought my client was high on PCP, so when my client would lapse in and 
out of consciousness, and in and out of physically struggling and 
cursing, they just beat him up, cuffed him and threw his ass in jail.  i 
reckon you could say that his insulin shock behavior was mistaken by 
them as drug induced insolence [as opposed to "insulince" - just a 
little pun there to lighten the mood! :) ].  His doctors told me he 
almost suffered permanent brain damage, and that he likely would have 
died, foaming at the mouth, had not a friend of his at work started 
calling every hospital in the area - the local jailer finally had carted 
my client off to the hospital when he went completely comatose - still 
with everyone treating him as a drug overdose case . . . lucky for my 
client, his friend was able to learn of his hospital admission in time, 
and then was able to convince the hospital receptionist to quickly get 
word of his diabetic illness to the emergency room docs, who then were 
able to revive him without any brain function loss . . .

So, you see, life is often a hell of a lot more complicated than we like 
to assume; and while that is NEVER an excuse to absolve someone from the 
proper consequences of their actions, life does often present us with 
situations where that is a lot harder to sort out than we might like. 
In closing, we all sometimes need to recall that old saying about what 
happens when you assume things - it can make an "ass" out of "u" and 
"me!"  :)

thru-thinker

Message: 34
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 09:54:57 EDT
From: WSM311@aol.com
Subject: Re: [at-l] food for thought re personal responsibility and
	addictions
To: at-l@mailman.backcountry.net
Message-ID: <165.214908c2.2c1dd4b1@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 > 3)  I once represented a diabetic who almost killed several people on
 > the roads, and was charged with DWI due to his incredibly drugged like
 > behavior, almost died in jail because the police did not recognize his
 > disease, etc.  --  my point here is kinda silly, but poignant:  yes,
 > even diabetics can kill other innocent people


As long as a person KNOWS they are diabetic, it is their responsibility 
to keep themselves under control. I am diabetic. You need to test blood 
sugar several times a day and eat responsibly. If you don't, it's the 
same as drinking irresponsibly.

We have discussed this very topic a zillion times on several of the 
diabetic lists. A diabetic not in control of their blood sugar has no 
business driving a car!

The oh poor me victim syndrome is pervasive these days. If any of us has 
a mental  or physical difficulty that might endanger others, we are 
responsible for our actions.

Wendy   (wsm311@aol.com)
Peace and Carrots Farm
Vermont
http://www.homestead.com/peaceandcarrots/
http://www.HeathersHikingHiatus.com/

at