A Dilemma? (Fred Speaking)
						MAIN PATH: Ann
		Ann	John

I reject this notion of a dilemma as far as stigma is concerned. I want you to set aside all ethical issues concerning liberty rights, equality rights, the right not to be stigmatized, and so on. I want you to focus for a moment on what government or any small group of intellectuals can accomplish. Your faith in government, policy, and law has been so conditioned that you think that something as amorphous and multi-faceted as stigma can be controlled by intellectuals with their hands on the levers of government power. That's simply a mistake. The process of reducing stigma is inevitably long and the means must be indirect.

Government can do very little to directly change widespread attitudes and beliefs that are reinforced by facts, symbols, and tradition. Even if government were willing to do whatever it can to eliminate stigma, it could do very little.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that government can do nothing. I'm saying that its role is minor and what it does must be rather indirect.

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