Andrew Ray wrote:
> I find it rather amusing that this guy is promoting something whose major
> debate is occurring in the alt.conspiracy, mindcontrol, whine, etc.
> groups. That should say something right there (especially alt.humor).
The issue - and the organization - are real and serius; I can't help it if
people post it in strange places! I was asked to help distribute this so I
did; I do beleive in this cause, so I let other know by passing on the
announcement where I thought it would be of interest. (I even added
alt.magic myself because those whith a beleif in the occolt are often
descirminated against in this way.)
I was not trying to prompt a debate either (though it looks like I've got
one). I know this is a contriverial issue, but I was primarilly sending an
announcement. If you want justification, here it is.
> Frankly, I'd like to keep these people's minds numbed - I don't want to
> have some Jeffrey Dahmer type running around free because people like you
> think that it's OK for him to think differently (that people are a food
> source).
Jeffery Dahmer was a criminal, not a mental patient - and he was sent to
prison (where the other prisoners, understandably, killed him), NOT to a
mental hospital! So he was certainly very strange, and dangerous, but he is
not an example of the typical mental patient!
> A lot of the people you think are being oppressed are locked up
> to protect the rest of us from them. Don't forget that. You think they
> are the victims, and yet when a schizophrenic, paranoid individual hurts
> or kills someone, you seem to forget that the people who were killed
> never did anything to deserve it. Prevention is better than retribution
> in this case.
Statistic will show that most mental patient are not violent or dangerous to
others, and that most criminal, including violent criminals, are "normal."
Many are commited for "their own good" - whatever that means(!); it sounds
like an aescetic rather than a medical, or even moral, issue. Many are
locked away with little real evidence of anything other than being a little
to eccentric for their freinds or realatives (ie, their own sub-culture).
Not uncommonly, it is someones socio-ecconomic status, sub-culture, or just
dumb luck, that determines who goes free and who is committed. It is OK for
a televangelist to see God, or for a famous actress to have vision and claim
to be "Everything in existance," and the biblical "I AM." These people have
money, power, and popularity, and a sub-culture that supports their claims,
so they are left alone) - and they have never been proven dangerous. Members
of charismatic churches or members of the "New Age" sub-culture are expect to
cliam to have special powers, but a lone individual or someone who joins a
group which their familly does not beleive in are in danger of of being
declared psychotic. I've met quite a few people who claimed to hear God, and
none of them has killed or hurt anyone (some of them are pacifists).
> No, you can't lock everyone up to prevent people from
> killing each other, but when someone is obviously disturbed enough in
> their thought processes where they pose a danger to other people, they
> can be locked up and should.
What is "disturbed enough," and how can you tell? It's has been well
demonstrated that diagnostician often contradict on their diagnoses, and that
diagnoses are often partially fudge by ignoring or rationallizign some of the
diagnostic criterea (I've also seen it happen persnoally).
> Depressives think differently than you and
> me, but they aren't locked up because they aren't going to hurt other
> people.
Of course your rigth here, most depressive aren't anymore likely to hurt
someone than the average person of the street.
> And I don't think the antidepressants they get are imprisoning
> their minds. Generally, if someone is getting Thorazine, they usually
> need it.
If they think they need it fine, but if not, no-one has the right to force it
on them - it unfortunate that our laws give them this right, which they
donnot properly have. Who has the right to define reallity for someone else?
No one knows all the facts, or what reality is! I t was once beleive that
four infinitely divisable element formed everything and that the heart was
the seatof the soul. Now we beleive in quarks and neurons, and think (like
the peopl of every other age in history) that we finally have it right. We
may be a lot closer in some areas, but we don't know it all. Often, the
experiences of psychosis invole the supernatural (which is beyond our science
to test, or even [validly] hypothosize about at all). These are religious
issues, and should not be diagnosed as illness. And don't go talking about
brain changes, every though or mental state involves some degree of neural
change. Every has the right to think differently, as long as they don't
actually (ie, physically) infringe on the right of others. I put the
original post here, knowing it was primarilly a research rather than a
clinical or ethical, newsgroup because I thought that this was a good place
to reach an audience which would find it relavant.
I've expained why I posted the announcement, and expained my possition. I'm
sure not everyone will agree. I preffer science to squabbling, but I thought
this issue was worth deffending my possion on, as it is very imoport for a
lot of people.
Jared.