I can speak to this point from my own experience. Being blind does not incapacitate human intelligence in any way. To the contrary, it stimulates the brain centers involved in imagination and abstract reason. Having no objective observable visual world increases the information a blind person will "see" through physical contact and hearing. Being deaf as well as blind, I imagine, would free the brain centers processing inputs to make even more out of physical contacts. . . . such as interpreting the vibrations of the stage when people are cheering. . . .
Helen Keller was, more to the point, "worked on" by political activists who wished to exploit her as a public spokeswoman for "change". Maybe an example of shameful exploitation of someone who was uniquely vulnerable. It is entirely possible she had no idea about the extended implications of the vacuous platitudes she was taught to say.
How many people inundated with the whole spectrum of political rhetoric have the same notion of "freedom" or "justice"???? In a state-mediated climate of ideology "freedom" can mean anything from unshackled jackbooted police who can do anything they want to you. . . . .. through an infinite number of specific outrages a "majority" can impose on "minorities" of any description. Even in the example of the American Experiment, "Freedom" meant that the colonists were no longer restricted or restrained from settling "Indian" lands vouchsafed to the partners of the British fur traders. In fact, because the Indians sided with the British during the American Revolution, the Indians were effectively removed from the colonists' narrow list of persons entitled to their rights at all. American "Freedom" was not something the Indians won for themselves, they in fact fought against the idea, and thereby lost their rights to it. Even Lincoln was still huge on occupying Indian territory and pushing genocide against the redskins while issuing the Emancipation Proclamation for the blacks.
The term "Freedom" has generally been treated as a narrow argument for those invoking it as their ideal, while taking it from others. "Justice" has had the same use.
