Fear Makes People Stupid

"At the high school in my affluent and almost crime free community, there was a fatal stabbing two days ago. Nothing like that ever happened in this town. So it was news. But because it violated people's expectations in various ways, it got several minutes of air time on each regional tv station. About two high school kids per week get shot or stabbed in Boston and it barely gets air time unless their is special pathos or protest vigil against violence.

"The weirdest thing, however, is that kid that did the stabbing is mildly autistic and had some kind of running misunderstanding with his victim. There were people saying 'they should lock these people up!' About one in 500 male HS, so I heard, are estimated to have diagnosable Aspergers syndrome. That would mean on average that one out of about 15 of these enraged parents probably have a nephew or cousin, unbeknownst to them, whom they have condemned. Fear makes people stupid." - Greensmile

In 1999, a woman was killed when a schizophrenic who had been in and out of treatment centers pushed her in front of a New York City subway train.

Last August, an Albuquerque man on a long descent into mental illness shot to death five people, including two police officers.

A former postal worker capped a growing history of psychological problems by killing seven people and herself this month in California. There is speculation that she could have been helped if treatment had been forced on her.

Scary stuff. Now New Mexico Gov. and WDW endorsee Bill Richardson is backing a bill that would allow family members, doctors or others to seek a court order forcing the mentally ill into outpatient treatment. Under similar existing laws in other states, if mentally ill people refuse the treatment, they can face confinement in a hospital.

Like other states, New Mexico provides that violent offenders who are mentally ill can be committed to inpatient treatment at a psychiatric hospital for a certain period. But the proposed law is intended for the mentally ill who have not committed crimes and have resisted treatment.

These laws infringe on the civil rights of the mentally ill. Social and psychiatric workers could accomplish the same thing with direct intervention on the streets, and most states that have passed these laws have not provided adequate money for the services needed by those forced into treatment. For example, in California, three years after adopting an outpatient treatment law, none of its counties, which are charged with carrying it out, have found the money or the will to put it into practice.

A senior lawyer with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, who also lobbied lawmakers in Albuquerque, said the measures were "a political quick fix in response to tragedies."

People do stupid things when frightened (like invade Iraq, or vote for the people who led the invasion into Iraq). And now Bill Richardson is in the unenviable position of having to back a stupid bill, or else offend the frightened sensibilities of those he needs for his Presidential aspirations. Which puts WDW into the unenviable position of having to apologize for its candidate's position on the wrong side of what's not a crime or mental health issue, but a civil rights issue.

(See? This is a post about karma after all.)