In answer to the conflict between social welfare and civil rights.
Let's begin with the Greeks.
The entrance to Thebes is barred by the Sphinx who demands Oedipus solve the riddle, what animal begins life on four legs, lives its life on two, and then ends its life on three? If Oedipus fails to resolve the dilemma, the Sphinx will devour him. Oedipus replies, the infant begins life by crawling on all four limbs, the youth runs on two, and the old hobble with a cane on three. Little does Oedipus know, he will be taking up the cane, sooner than he thinks.
As in the solution to the riddle, most people move from dependence to independence and back to dependent status by virtue of their age alone. Thus society always spans the poles of dependent to independent and back. In a society where the needs of its people are subservient to its economic processes of reproduction, such a spectrum presents little or no dilemma. Those who are independent provide for those who are not, with the full knowledge that they themselves have been dependent as children and will become so again as they age---if not sooner by some act of fate.
However we do not live in a society that makes its economic processes subservient to its people's needs, but rather the other way around. The economic processes of reproduction in our society have made the society subservient to these economic needs. From this neoliberal capitalist inversion, it follows that society is partitioned into two.
According to the Sphinx of neoliberal capitalism, there are those who produce and those who do not. Those who produce are rewarded with life according to some arbitrary scheme of the economic value of their productive efforts, and the rest are left to prosper as they may, and suffer as they do. From this crude riddle the whole spectrum of dependence: the young, the old, the disabled, and those whose economic value are found wanting, are simply abandoned to a gray social purgatory. The only escape from this imposed limbo is found in the magic incantation of law that transforms the otherwise dependent into the productive and therefore independent. Of course it is always a flawed transformation, a flawed productivity so it is a flawed independence. That is, unless you are rich. In which case, being rich is the most productive thing to be, and you are thereby absolved of solving the riddle by the great Sphinx.
So, then returning to the idea that the conflict between the social welfare model of dependence and the civil rights model of independence is a case of the disabled wanting their cake and eating too---well of course. That is exactly right, and why not?
Since most of us move from dependence to independence and back, whatever is the difference? As a child I expected to be taken care of and I wasn't particularly. Facing old age, I know I will return to such a dismal struggle until I die. These were and will be gross injustices. I want the freedom to move back and forth between the realms of dependence and independence as I need to without suffering pointless consequences just to support the economic ideals of productivity and reward. So, I just assume everyone wants and needs the same sort of freedom.
In a more formal manner and without identifying the domination of neoliberal capitalism as the primary problem, the article cited in the previous post seems to come to similar conclusions. Chuck Grimes
``B. A New Synthesis - A Model of Social Justice
Just as broad notions of equality may defuse the tension between civil rights and social welfare based disability policies, broader thinking about social welfare also may permit a reconciliation of the two approaches. The traditional social welfare model relies on disability as a means of sorting individuals into categories based on judgments about their ability and obligation to work. The implicit purpose of this sorting is to compel people that are found to be not disabled to remain in the work force. At heart, the social welfare model rests on a deep rooted suspicion of the poor. Those found to be not disabled are excluded from the social welfare model, often harshly, as a means of enforcing the general obligation to work.
Re-examination of this basic assumption could have a major impact on disability policy. Absent this suspicion of the poor, social welfare policies could be reconceived to accord the poor both reasonable income assistance and a range of supports to help achieve entry and success in the job market. A different system could replace the idea of social welfare with a concept of social and economic rights. Under this framework, the benefits provided to people with disabilities would appear as simply one form of recognizing the right of each individual to economic security and full participation in society.[53] In such a system, the process of sorting people into and out of the disability category would be much less important as meaningful assistance would be available in either event. The provision of various forms of assistance to people with disabilities would not appear exceptional, as all individuals who face barriers to full economic and social participation in society would have a positive claim for assistance in overcoming such barriers. In sum, a system based on a broader notion of social justice that stressed the right of each individual to a basic income and opportunity for economic success would move social policy beyond the basic dichotomy between social welfare and civil rights based policies. Policies associated with the social welfare approach, such as income support programs, and those associated with the civil rights model, such as nondiscrimination legislation, would be complementary components of a larger set of economic and social rights that are grounded on principles of respect for human dignity.'' Waddington L, Diller M, Tensions and Coherence in Disability Policy...
(http://www.dredf.org/symposium/waddington.html)