If by 'care' you mean imprisonment w/o trial or charge, forced administration of addictive, body and brain-damaging drugs, intensive and invasive monitoring/policing in one's own home, poverty, social isolation, being the target of rampant discrimination and seriously damaged physical health as a result of all of the above, then I would have to say the level of 'mental health care' available is already much more than adequate.
If this is the best we as a society can offer to the frightened, angry, grieving, despairing people in our midst, then we ought to be hanging our heads in shame.
Distressed human beings deserve to be loved, supported and nurtured on their own terms, not caged, brutalized, endlessly policed and told by everyone else what 'their own best interests' are. They need to have their basic rights strengthened and vigorously defended, not stolen away using a medical pretext that is of dubious merit at best.
I am acting on the assumption that participants in this discussion are people with only the best of intentions. Just don't allow your good intentions to provide governments with a back-door route to depriving us of even more of our liberties than they already are.
i write this in the context of last weeks' incidents in Ottawa and Quebec. the 'mental health' advocates feel (as i said, all with the best of intentions) they can offer a kinder, gentler, more progressive alternative to draconian, scurrilous anti-terrorism laws. but given the already oppressive and highly controlling nature of the 'mental health' system, advocating for its fortification opens up the possibility of a whole other kind of police state.
this is a hydra we are dealing with, folks. (the hydra being a mythical serpent with multiple heads - and when you cut off one of its heads it sprouts two more to replace it.)
there are multiple avenues to control and repression at the government's disposal as a result of these two incidents. we need to approach this whole discussion with prudence and vigilance, keeping the strengthening and defense of everyone's basic rights at the forefront of our consciousness.
If this is the best we as a society can offer to the frightened, angry, grieving, despairing people in our midst, then we ought to be hanging our heads in shame.
Distressed human beings deserve to be loved, supported and nurtured on their own terms, not caged, brutalized, endlessly policed and told by everyone else what 'their own best interests' are. They need to have their basic rights strengthened and vigorously defended, not stolen away using a medical pretext that is of dubious merit at best.
I am acting on the assumption that participants in this discussion are people with only the best of intentions. Just don't allow your good intentions to provide governments with a back-door route to depriving us of even more of our liberties than they already are.
i write this in the context of last weeks' incidents in Ottawa and Quebec. the 'mental health' advocates feel (as i said, all with the best of intentions) they can offer a kinder, gentler, more progressive alternative to draconian, scurrilous anti-terrorism laws. but given the already oppressive and highly controlling nature of the 'mental health' system, advocating for its fortification opens up the possibility of a whole other kind of police state.
this is a hydra we are dealing with, folks. (the hydra being a mythical serpent with multiple heads - and when you cut off one of its heads it sprouts two more to replace it.)
there are multiple avenues to control and repression at the government's disposal as a result of these two incidents. we need to approach this whole discussion with prudence and vigilance, keeping the strengthening and defense of everyone's basic rights at the forefront of our consciousness.
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