What you can do for your country

Liberals, Deinstitutionalisation and Jared Lee Loughner

Conventional wisdom is of course that Palin is responsible for the murders in Arizona.  More comes out every day that Loughner exhibit traits of schizophrenia.  If so, it would have been nice if the combination of educators, parents, friends, and officials could have taken some steps to place Loughner under proper care (you know so Palin could not get to him with her mind control), but it actually very hard to force people with severe mental diseases to be treated because of a range of reforms pushed by progressives starting in the 60's:

1. Ronald David Laing, a Scottish Psychiatrist, In the 60's put forth the foundation of the Anti-Psychiatry movement.  He maintained that schizophrenia was "a theory not a fact".  The popularity of Laing's theories is blamed for decline in students entering the psychology profession.
2. President John F. Kennedy's 1963 Community Mental Health Centers Act accelerated the trend toward deinstitutionalizationwith the establishment of a network of community mental health centers and changes in laws regarding commitment.
3. Kenneth Kesey, wrote "One Flew over the Cukoo's Nest"based in part on Laing's thinking (and his own intensive use of drugs).  "Kesey did not believe that these patients were insane, rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave."  The Book,play, and later the movie, portrayed a anti-psychiatry philosophy leading to a public displeasure with residential mental facilities resulting in further deinstitutionalization policies.
4. Deinstitutioanlization led to many legal and structural changes.  American public mental hospital patients declined from more than 550,000 in 1955 to fewer than 40,000 at present.  The displaced patients now represent 30-50% of the homeless populations.

As a result of Laing, Kennedy, Kesey and public efforts to transform the mental health care system to be more humane, to characterize mentally ill people as "Just thinking differently", and characterizing mental health care as some form of evil, we now have a system that makes it virtually impossible to get folks like Loughner the care they need.

Deinstitutionalization policies driven by "do good" liberals and the federal government put focus on limited bad acts.  Kesey wrote a story based on his LSD induced observations in one VA mental hospital.  Once his story was put into film, his small example falsely characterized the bulk of mental health care as dehumanizing and made it impossible to force the Laughners of the world to get treatment.

If someone other than Laughner is to blame, I think it might be the progressives.

Political Violence - Left or Right?

The news of the tragedy in Arizona has raised a lot of questions about the motives, speech, etc of the Right.  Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano has raised concerns about "Lone Wolfs" and military threats.  Worried about this all, I did a little check on past assassination of politicians in the US:

• Andrew Jackson (Attempt) by Richard Lawrence  (Determined as deranged)
• Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth (Confederate Sympathizer, pro slavery)
• William Seward (Attempt) by Lewis Powell (Booth Accomplice)
• James Garfield by Charles Guiteau (deranged fame seeker)
• William McKinley by Leon Czolgosz (anarchist/Anti-Capitalist)
• Theodore Roosevelt (Attempt) by John Schrank (Deranged - Was told to kill Rosevelt in dream)
• Huey Long by his security detail (Carl Weiss is potential assassian, but the case is confused)
• Franklin Rosevelt (Attempt) by Giuseppe Zangara (Deranged anti-capitalist)
• Harry Truman (Attempt) by Purto Rican Seperatists
• J. F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald (Communist)
• Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan (Palestinian Anti-Zionist)
• Malcolm X by Talmadge Hayer (In apparent power struggle in Nation of Islam Power)
• Martin Luther King by James Earl Ray (Perhaps a paid assassination by racist elements)
• Richard Nixon (Attemp) by Samuel Byck(Believed government was conspiring to oppress the poor)
• George Wallace (Attempt) by Arthur Bremer (To achieve notoriety)
• Gearld Ford (Attempt) by Lynette Fromme (Charles Mason Follower/Wack Job)
• Gearld Ford (Attempt) by Sara Jane Moore (Progressive)
• Leo Ryan by Jim Jones Cult (Marxist)
• Ronald Reagan (Attempt) by John Hinkely (Insane)
• George H. W. Bush (Attempt) by Sadam Hussain and associates
• Bill Clinton (Attempt) by Frank Corder (Publicity oriented Suicide)
• Bill Clinton (Attempt) by Fancisco Duran (Deranged - Attempting to kill Alien Mist, blah, blah)

There have also been several politically oriented bombings/criminal actions including:

• Black Panthers (Leftists)
• Weather Underground (Leftists)
• Army Math Center bombings by Anti War radicals
• Bank robberies by Symbionese Liberation Army (Left wing radical group)
• Oklahoma City by Tim McVeigh (Nazi/Anti-Government)

In reviewing many acts of political violence the major motivation seems to be fame seekers and nut cases.  There are many examples of presidential assassins who are progressive, marxist, etc - left leaning.  The violent groups through the 60's and 70's were mostly left leaning anti war groups.  It is only recently (Oklahoma City) that there have been serious anti-government led efforts, though Nazism is a left wing philosophy. There is no real evidence that the right wing in the United States is prone to kill or blow things up for a political end.

As far as Arizona goes, I bet we find out the kid suffers an untreated mental illness.  Many of the assassins above had mental conditions, in which there target was an a-political choice simply selected for the moment.  This has nothing to do with Palin or the Right. 

 

"We cannot give lunatics editorial control of our discourse"

With the tragedy in Arizona, it is a good time to reflect on what is great about America and ignore the voice of the lunatics.  This article is a good first summary on the subject:

"Within hours of the attack on Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, liberal bloggers, pundits, and even politicians raced to pin responsibility on the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the general “climate of hate” produced by opposition to President Obama’s agenda."

 

College Student Explains what Obama Can't about Cutting the Budget

Don't Ask Don't Tell Reform Prepares to Take its First Friendly

In breaking news over the weekend, CNN and others reported on a ship board video produced in 2006 by the crew of the USS Enterprise.  In it, it is reported, members of the military make a range of lude comments some of which appear to be derogatory towards women and homosexuals.

When I turned on the TV this morning, the Today crowd on NBC topped the news with this Navy story.  It is unclear to me why this is the #1 story for America the day we all head back to work after Christmas, but its NBC so I should expect nothing more than agenda.  The gist of there story was that its really only a matter of time before the new commander of the Enterprise, the XO at the time of the video, gets hs walking papers.

There are 11 aircraft carriers in the US fleet.  Only the best and most skilled warriors are chosen to lead such a ship.  Capt. Owen Honors (great name by the way) I suspect is a great leader, though I suspect you need to be stuck on a carrier for 6 months to get the humor of the video. 

I personally do not have a problems with gays serving in the military.  The military is generally run in an A-Sexual manner (i.e. military is focused on staying alive not having sex).  People in the military are taught to conform and keep their sexual activity to the next "leave".  Looking at the video I have a sense that XO Honors and crew actually are poking a bit of fun at the hypocrisy of the DADT policy in there suggestive gay humor.   Though ok with gays in the military, I do have a problem in DADT reform being a back door way to further effect the greater social policy through changes military policy.  Or using DADT to force any agenda in the military.

The video is full of bad locker room humor, not sexual bias.  It was made in 2006, well before DADT reform. If DADT reform means we are going to re-investigate past behavior and measure it to a new standard we will see military men and women leave the service simply because of some silly indiscretion from a long forgotten video.  It seems a bit hypocritical that the Commander in Chief can take advantage of a young intern, but a stupid video may be the end of Capt. Owen Honors.  Though this ended up on video, I suspect there are 1000's f indiscretions that don't.  So is it only wrong because it was video taped?  Is the military prepared to take out Capt. Honors and all other officers who said the same things but were not taped?  Or how about the officers that viewed the tape and did not take corrective action?

Frankly I think Capt. Owen Honor should report to Washington and come out of the closet saying he is a repressed homosexual who can finally express his true feelings now with the reform of DADT.  I am not sure what the politically correct class in DC would do then, but it would be fun to watch.

We should let the military deal with DADT reform in their own good time and not vilify Capt. Honors.  Let him get back to the fight so we can get the mission done, and leave social justice to others.

Richard Epstein on Barack Obama, his former Chicago Law Colleague

 

Thoughtful Books By Epstein:

• Simple Rules for a Complex World
• Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain
• Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (Studies in Law and Economics)

Happy New Year 2011

Let 2011 remind us that the United States remains the land of freedom and opportunity. While Tom Freedman et. al. wish to be more like China, which bans simple freedoms like Skype, or Russia, which imprisons dissidents for questioning government, know that our future is not Washington, but instead the innovation and liberties we pursue as free people each day.