Well, of course that's how it works. This wasn't a divinely inspired act, nor was it a result of some inherent property of the supernatural essence of man, or any nonsense like that.
It's true that blame-flinging is a problem, because we don't have all of the facts, but what you've done is just throw your hands up in the air and say, "Well, shit happens," where this particular shit is, in your mind, transcendental. However, if there's one thing experience has taught us over the years, it's that when shit happens, it has a whole bunch of precipitating causes. There is no purely transcendental shit.
Well, the mental health systems design is something we could debate. It is designed to help people like him, it's just not designed so that it's very good at doing it, or very good at even finding people like him to help.
As for more effective treatment programs for bipolar, I'm not sure. There are people actively working on that, though, and as I said, I'm pretty confident that in the next couple decades, significant progress will be made. There will be barriers (practicing psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies being two of the biggest), but I choose to be optimistic.
That's not entirely true. I don't want to seem like I'm blaming any political orientation, or its adherents, but schizophrenics are not completely divorced from reality in the way that this implies. In fact, their delusions tend to be highly culturally specific, precisely because there's stuff getting in, it's just not being processed in a realistic way. So, while no one's at fault, it's not true that what they hear and see doesn't affect their delusions. It's just that you can't predict what and how those delusions will be affected.
Jason, I don’t think you and I disagree about involuntary commitment. I find it abhorrent, both in theory and in practice, and think it should be reserved for cases that would have led to imprisonment if the person had been ruled sane. In every other case, it is immoral and ineffective (as a treatment, which is, I believe, what our focus should be). This doesn’t mean it’s not still incredibly common, especially for the poor, and even more especially for the homeless. But as I’ve been saying, the mental health system is broken.
Pat, as someone who's spent his entire adult life sutdying psychology, I'm well aware of the illness patterns of bipolar disorder. Nothing you said, however, speaks to my point, which is that the mental health system failed. And it failed, as it usually does, at several points: identifying those with illness, treating those with illness, producing better treatments (as the recent debate around the DSM-V has shown, the research arm of the mental health system is in a bit of chaos right now, and has been for some time -- that many of our treatments are not further advanced than they are now is a widely predicted failure), producing better systems for managing care, producing better public education campaigns (how many common physical illnesses do you know of that, with obvious external symptoms, would not have been spotted by virtually everyone around the person exhibiting them?), and better campaigns towards reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.
It is true that bipolar is exceptionally difficult to treat long term, but this isn't a natural fact, it's a fact of the current system and our knowledge and practices within it.
I'm actually confident, given some changes in the way mental illnesses are approached scientifically, that significant progress will be made in the next 20 years on most of these fronts. That's not to say that there will never be people who slip between the cracks, but right now, the cracks are everywhere and the size of the Grand Canyon.
Yeah, I should have been clearer. The mental health system didn’t fail us by not committing Loughner. It failed Loughner by not treating his mental illness, which of course means it failed society as well. One might argue that no one knew about his mental illness (though it sounds like several people were well aware of his symptoms), but education is one part of the failure of the mental health system.
I am not in favor of involuntary commitments at all, under any circumstance short of physical violence or direct threats thereof, because involuntary commitments, as they are incredibly ineffective for treatment purposes (at least long-term), are another failure of the mental health system.
Well, we can put aside constiutional arguments, because that's a different discussion (whether it was a good argument then and now, e.g.), but the hobby shit, sure as hell.
I can think of all sorts of hobbies that I wouldn't care how many people took them up, should still be illegal. So yeah, if it's just a hobby we're losing, sure, I have no problem with depriving however many million people of it if it prevents deaths. Or, to put it in your inflammatory terms, you think the hobby of 34 million (not sure where you got that figure) people outweighs the deaths of 1? 6? 100? 1000? 10,000 per year?
It's not a lack of imagination, it's a lack of inference, and it's not on my part.
Banning cars, or certain kinds of cars, would limit car deaths, but it would limit a whole hell of a lot of other things (like access to work and goods). Banning guns, or at least certain kinds of guns, would limit gun deaths and injuries, but aside from target shooting, not much else. Do you see the point now? If not, I'm not sure how to make it any clearer.
It’s certainly not ridiculous. I agree that a car is capable of killing large numbers of people at one time, though unlike a concealed weapon, there is at least the possibility of getting out of the way in most cases. However, the car does a whole lot of things by design (transport people, transport cargo, shelter people and cargo from the elements, etc.), whereas guns do one thing (or perhaps two, since many guns were designed to serve as effective melee weapons as well): shoot targets. Granted, not all targets are living things, but again, unlike cars, they (at least most of them, along with their projectiles) were designed to (shoot projectiles that) hit and seriously wound or kill living things.
Also, in addition to not owning a gun, I don’t own a car. ?
Mike, that’s not what I said, and I’m going to assume that you know that (if not, what’s the point of talking to you, eh?).
My point is this: just about anyone can kill a person, maybe even two, with just about any object that’s sufficiently heavy or sharp. Guns are unique in that they can kill large numbers of people in a short period of time. Not surprising, since killing is what they were created for. So there’s an obvious and relevant difference.
If a guy kills 6 and wounds several more with a baseball bat in a short period of time, it would probably be better to outlaw super ninjas with baseball bats.
I have no problem with a discussion of the issue of self-censoring (or worse, official censoring) of discourse to avoid setting off some crazy people. But wussifying is where you've lost people.
Heidegger, the standard (from the last post) has gone from public officials criticizing "anti-government rhetoric" to people being put in jail? Forgetting for a moment that peaceful protesters were put in jail, and that law inforcement agencies actively infiltrated peaceful protest groups, you seem to have moved the goalposts. But whatever. I'm not sure why I'm responding to you anyway.
So far, many on the left have been careful. Most of the blogs I read, for example, have pointed out that this guy had no obvious connection with Palin or Beck, but was just crazy. Doesn't mean that Palin and others don't need to tone things down a bit, though.
Scott, you didn't say infringe upon, you said deny. That implies that they want to ban all guns. They don't even want to ban most of them. At least, this is their public position, and there's no real evidence to contradict it.
Of course, we've always known that Democrats tend to eat their own.
Still, my point was simply that everybody does it, and what gets counted as anti-government tends to be highly (negatively) correlated with who's in power. I suspect Bob, like many conservatives, thinks it’s largely a left-wing/liberal phenomenon, even though he lived through the 60s (and judging by his heavy and semi-random use and abuse of Voeglin terminology and entire sentences, might have partaken of the 60s a bit) and the 00s.
Of course, anti-government rhetoric from the "left" was stifled under the Bush administration. When it wasn’t simply disallowed (arrests, free speech zones at political speeches, etc.), it was described as treasonous, providing aid and comfort to the enemy, or even actively supporting terrorism. People on the “right” were upset a couple years ago when the government appeared to be targeting right wing groups, but they didn’t have any problem with the government under Bush targeting left wing groups.
The problem with decrying anti-government rhetoric is that over time it ultimately means decrying most dissent, because what “anti-government rhetoric” amounts to depends largely on who’s in power. And that’s probably the biggest sign that “anti-government” rhetoric as a broad category is specious and dangerous.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On ““The Elements of Clunk””
Wel that's -- that's nitpicking, isn't it?
On “Space Oddity”
Well, of course that's how it works. This wasn't a divinely inspired act, nor was it a result of some inherent property of the supernatural essence of man, or any nonsense like that.
It's true that blame-flinging is a problem, because we don't have all of the facts, but what you've done is just throw your hands up in the air and say, "Well, shit happens," where this particular shit is, in your mind, transcendental. However, if there's one thing experience has taught us over the years, it's that when shit happens, it has a whole bunch of precipitating causes. There is no purely transcendental shit.
"
Well, the mental health systems design is something we could debate. It is designed to help people like him, it's just not designed so that it's very good at doing it, or very good at even finding people like him to help.
As for more effective treatment programs for bipolar, I'm not sure. There are people actively working on that, though, and as I said, I'm pretty confident that in the next couple decades, significant progress will be made. There will be barriers (practicing psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies being two of the biggest), but I choose to be optimistic.
"
Yeah, if only that explained anything or helped in any way.
"
That's not entirely true. I don't want to seem like I'm blaming any political orientation, or its adherents, but schizophrenics are not completely divorced from reality in the way that this implies. In fact, their delusions tend to be highly culturally specific, precisely because there's stuff getting in, it's just not being processed in a realistic way. So, while no one's at fault, it's not true that what they hear and see doesn't affect their delusions. It's just that you can't predict what and how those delusions will be affected.
On “Be the Change You Want to See”
Yeah, "anger" is not the problem. There are reasons to be angry. Acknowledging reality is not a fault.
It's good to see that you stuck with the "Look at the vitriol on the other side!" tactic, though. In response to this post in particular.
On “Space Oddity”
Jason, I don’t think you and I disagree about involuntary commitment. I find it abhorrent, both in theory and in practice, and think it should be reserved for cases that would have led to imprisonment if the person had been ruled sane. In every other case, it is immoral and ineffective (as a treatment, which is, I believe, what our focus should be). This doesn’t mean it’s not still incredibly common, especially for the poor, and even more especially for the homeless. But as I’ve been saying, the mental health system is broken.
"
Pat, as someone who's spent his entire adult life sutdying psychology, I'm well aware of the illness patterns of bipolar disorder. Nothing you said, however, speaks to my point, which is that the mental health system failed. And it failed, as it usually does, at several points: identifying those with illness, treating those with illness, producing better treatments (as the recent debate around the DSM-V has shown, the research arm of the mental health system is in a bit of chaos right now, and has been for some time -- that many of our treatments are not further advanced than they are now is a widely predicted failure), producing better systems for managing care, producing better public education campaigns (how many common physical illnesses do you know of that, with obvious external symptoms, would not have been spotted by virtually everyone around the person exhibiting them?), and better campaigns towards reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.
It is true that bipolar is exceptionally difficult to treat long term, but this isn't a natural fact, it's a fact of the current system and our knowledge and practices within it.
I'm actually confident, given some changes in the way mental illnesses are approached scientifically, that significant progress will be made in the next 20 years on most of these fronts. That's not to say that there will never be people who slip between the cracks, but right now, the cracks are everywhere and the size of the Grand Canyon.
"
Yeah, I should have been clearer. The mental health system didn’t fail us by not committing Loughner. It failed Loughner by not treating his mental illness, which of course means it failed society as well. One might argue that no one knew about his mental illness (though it sounds like several people were well aware of his symptoms), but education is one part of the failure of the mental health system.
I am not in favor of involuntary commitments at all, under any circumstance short of physical violence or direct threats thereof, because involuntary commitments, as they are incredibly ineffective for treatment purposes (at least long-term), are another failure of the mental health system.
"
I blame the mental health system. (No, really.)
On “Crazy people doing crazy things”
Well, we can put aside constiutional arguments, because that's a different discussion (whether it was a good argument then and now, e.g.), but the hobby shit, sure as hell.
I can think of all sorts of hobbies that I wouldn't care how many people took them up, should still be illegal. So yeah, if it's just a hobby we're losing, sure, I have no problem with depriving however many million people of it if it prevents deaths. Or, to put it in your inflammatory terms, you think the hobby of 34 million (not sure where you got that figure) people outweighs the deaths of 1? 6? 100? 1000? 10,000 per year?
"
It's not a lack of imagination, it's a lack of inference, and it's not on my part.
Banning cars, or certain kinds of cars, would limit car deaths, but it would limit a whole hell of a lot of other things (like access to work and goods). Banning guns, or at least certain kinds of guns, would limit gun deaths and injuries, but aside from target shooting, not much else. Do you see the point now? If not, I'm not sure how to make it any clearer.
"
It’s certainly not ridiculous. I agree that a car is capable of killing large numbers of people at one time, though unlike a concealed weapon, there is at least the possibility of getting out of the way in most cases. However, the car does a whole lot of things by design (transport people, transport cargo, shelter people and cargo from the elements, etc.), whereas guns do one thing (or perhaps two, since many guns were designed to serve as effective melee weapons as well): shoot targets. Granted, not all targets are living things, but again, unlike cars, they (at least most of them, along with their projectiles) were designed to (shoot projectiles that) hit and seriously wound or kill living things.
Also, in addition to not owning a gun, I don’t own a car. ?
"
Mike, that’s not what I said, and I’m going to assume that you know that (if not, what’s the point of talking to you, eh?).
My point is this: just about anyone can kill a person, maybe even two, with just about any object that’s sufficiently heavy or sharp. Guns are unique in that they can kill large numbers of people in a short period of time. Not surprising, since killing is what they were created for. So there’s an obvious and relevant difference.
If a guy kills 6 and wounds several more with a baseball bat in a short period of time, it would probably be better to outlaw super ninjas with baseball bats.
"
He killed 6 and wounded several others with a gun. Kinda hard to do that with a baseball bat.
Just sayin'.
On “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shot at Tucson rally”
What does wussifying mean, in this context?
I have no problem with a discussion of the issue of self-censoring (or worse, official censoring) of discourse to avoid setting off some crazy people. But wussifying is where you've lost people.
On “Government and Violence”
http://www.amconmag.com/article/2003/dec/15/00012/
On “A Closer Look at Jared Lee Loughner”
Heidegger, the standard (from the last post) has gone from public officials criticizing "anti-government rhetoric" to people being put in jail? Forgetting for a moment that peaceful protesters were put in jail, and that law inforcement agencies actively infiltrated peaceful protest groups, you seem to have moved the goalposts. But whatever. I'm not sure why I'm responding to you anyway.
"
By the way, people on the left aren't the only ones blaming the other side for this shooting:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/tea-party-group-blames-leftist-for-giffords-shooting/69153/
"
So far, many on the left have been careful. Most of the blogs I read, for example, have pointed out that this guy had no obvious connection with Palin or Beck, but was just crazy. Doesn't mean that Palin and others don't need to tone things down a bit, though.
"
It's gotten play. It doesn't excuse any others using violent rhetoric.
On “Government and Violence”
Heidegger, start with Ashcroft, December... something... 2001 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. After that, you can have more.
On “Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shot at Tucson rally”
Scott, you didn't say infringe upon, you said deny. That implies that they want to ban all guns. They don't even want to ban most of them. At least, this is their public position, and there's no real evidence to contradict it.
But since you've read their minds...
On “Government and Violence”
Of course, we've always known that Democrats tend to eat their own.
Still, my point was simply that everybody does it, and what gets counted as anti-government tends to be highly (negatively) correlated with who's in power. I suspect Bob, like many conservatives, thinks it’s largely a left-wing/liberal phenomenon, even though he lived through the 60s (and judging by his heavy and semi-random use and abuse of Voeglin terminology and entire sentences, might have partaken of the 60s a bit) and the 00s.
"
Of course, anti-government rhetoric from the "left" was stifled under the Bush administration. When it wasn’t simply disallowed (arrests, free speech zones at political speeches, etc.), it was described as treasonous, providing aid and comfort to the enemy, or even actively supporting terrorism. People on the “right” were upset a couple years ago when the government appeared to be targeting right wing groups, but they didn’t have any problem with the government under Bush targeting left wing groups.
The problem with decrying anti-government rhetoric is that over time it ultimately means decrying most dissent, because what “anti-government rhetoric” amounts to depends largely on who’s in power. And that’s probably the biggest sign that “anti-government” rhetoric as a broad category is specious and dangerous.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.