Liberals and Conservatives Can Agree about Re-Funding Mental-Health Treatment

A friend of mine, John Engle,  wrote:

Jon,

I'd like you to bring up a subject on your blog or page if you could sometime. I rarely discuss politics, especially with friends, and with my "hit and miss" internet time, I wouldn't have time to moderate or reply much to this thread. My subject is this: around 20 or 25 years ago the federal government in cahoots with the state governments started and completed the elimination of state mental institutions. These institutions housed (and protected the public from) the criminally insane, and cared for those who were not mentally capable of caring for themselves (or their children). While there were abuses, I believe they served a very important purpose. I also think that eliminating the abuses instead of the institutions would have been much smarter and more practical.

The reasons for the closings vary but at the top of the list it would seem that it was a cost cutting measure, combined with the politically correct thinking of not wanting anyone to feel bad because they were labelled as mentally ill/ crazy/ insane.

My purpose for bringing this up stems from the Tuscon shooting. The guy (from a layman's standpoint) is clearly insane. Nobody in his right mind would do such a thing. From a legal standpoint it was obviously pre-meditated so the sanity question would be a weak defense. Would the system have caught this guy? Probably not, but maybe. I would be very interested to hear your perspective from an attorney's standpoint, and from a liberal one too. I personally am a conservative so I assume our opinions would differ. I would also like to hear the opinions of those who follow your posts and blog.

Hope all is well with you Jon, enjoy the Ca weather while we freeze here. Also say hello to Pete for me next time you talk.

Take Care

John

Conservatives and liberals can agree about the importance of funding for mental-health treatment.  I might not know that concern for people's self-esteem was a factor in closing treatment centers, but I don't doubt that that was an issue for some people.  Otherwise, I completely agree with John.

I agree completely, but I cannot forebear adding a cautionary note.  There was a time years ago that I witnessed mental-health involuntary-commitment hearings.  People who know me will understand.

There was one hearing that stood out.  The woman stood accused of taking items that belonged to her husband that she said were Satanic, piling them on her lawn, and setting them on fire.  That's why the police took her into custody.  The psychiatrist said that this was "religious ideation", and therefore showed mental illness.  The judge committed her to a mental hostpital.

Now, what she did was the kind of thing that churches like Vineyard might have endorsed.  If her husband in fact did have Satanic  property, then what she did was encouraged by Acts 19:19:

A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

So that case has left me with an uneasy feeling that the system could be abused.  Maybe it's cases like this that John had in mind when he spoke of "abuses".

But that is one case.  It's really only frightening if it became common to commit people for "religious ideation".   And if that happens, the particular mechanism of oppression won't matter: we're hammered.

In the meantime, we must re-fund mental health treatment.  I got treatment only because I had private health insurance.  Until that was discovered, the screener who examined me after I was seized was not interested in putting me in a clinic bed.  If I had been returned to the streets, my bones would now be spread in some obscure ditch somewhere in Southern California.  But that was me.  Many people now are un-insured.  And could be dangerous.

So, thank you John, for raising this issue.