Even if deafness can be "cured" with implants and stuff, there's the question of whether it should be cured for everyone. I know there are deaf communities that feel their culture and language are threatened by the increasing prevalence of implants. After all, why would anyone learn sign language if there are no deaf people, other than as a curiosity, or a secret language? Languages, after all, help bind cultures together.

Personally, I think we should give children every opportunity to live their lives unimpeded by disabilities, even if it means some people feel threatened, or it means the end of some communities. (Btw, I extend this view to screening for genetic disorders during early pregnancy, to allow parents to end the pregnancy should such a disorder be found. I know some parents who have children with Down's think this idea sounds horrid, but I'm of the firm opinion that we can't go around preserving various disabilities that have no advantageous traits just to keep from offending some people.)

It blew my mind when I realized years ago that politicians didn't talk the way they do because they were stodgy bad communicators, but because they were saying something very intentional and very different from common moral values - like this video - We assume Geroge Bush means freedom for everyone when he means freedom for markets and people on top... and maybe some trickle down.

It's like a secret language that the people on top understand but at the same time it lets the average person assume their needs are being addressed. Like anytime the phrase "American interests" gets used by folks in the top of the government. You'd think that meant "our interests" but it virtually always means interests of American corporations abilities to make money overseas. If supporting a dictator (take your pick over the past 30 years) supports the ability of American corporations to make money but also massively decreases the quality of life for a person under that dictatorship it's always the "American interest" to support the dictator dispite the fact that the vast majority of americans would be more interested in supporting those people if they really knew what was going on.

I think it's in interesting that the two people who opened my mind to this stuff are both linguists - George Lakoff and Noam Chomsky. Which makes sense because it's a matter of language and meaning.

George Lakoff's book "Moral Politics" is absolutely amazing by the way - it talks about how people on the left and people on the right look at the world through different metaphors based on families they grew up in. Liberals based on nurturance, conservatives on a strict father. The reason we're so polarized is because we don't understand each other since we frame issues on different world views and words don't even mean the same things on the surface.