[Biggirl]

Fighting against political correctness, which has now become a war.

[556x45]

‘Whenever a shooting event, like the murder-suicide at UCLA, gains national notoriety, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over “our” alleged failure to deal adequately with issues of “mental health.”’

LOL, no, theres the always reliable liberal knee jerk ban the guns screeching. Ive rarely heard an hoest well consdiered discussion of the actual causes of the crime.

[WENDLE]

The Soviets did this all the time. It was just propaganda for SHEEPLE.

[Jim W N]

“Mentally ill” is a tool of the totalitarian state which is where all politician correctness is going.

[BenLurkin]

Look, Jack, can the sophistry.

I’ll call guys like that crazy or evil however I see it. And if I call them crazy and evil both, then that’s what they are.

And by the way, this jerk is called crazy for WHY he murdered. Not just that he murdered. So the bulk of your premise is useless at the outset

[sportutegrl]

If the mass murderer is a conservative like the OK City Bomber, he is not mentally ill and is put to death immediately. If the murderer is liberal or a member of a victim group, then he is of course a lone wolf/mentally ill. See also John Hinkley and the Unibomber.

[wideminded]

First, the sole reason for concluding that, say, Mainak Sarkar, the UCLA gunman, is “mentally ill” is that he became a murderer.

That's not true. It appears that Sarkar had delusions of persecution. Since most other people familiar with the situation concluded that these feelings were unjustified and since paranoid delusions are one of the most common symptoms of mental illness, there are are certainly sound reasons to think that Sarkar was probably mentally ill.

Second, the only reason for regarding as “ill” one who acts murderously or violently is the metaphysically dubious supposition that humans are, by nature, essentially good.

That's not true either. No one is saying that everyone who acts murderously is mentally ill. If someone murders because they are perceiving reality in a distorted fashion, then they may be mentally ill.

If murderers are “mentally ill,” then rapists, armed robbers, and violent-doers of all sorts must be as well.

Not all these people are perceiving reality in a distorted way.

As the late, prolific psychiatrist Thomas Szasz never tired of informing audiences ...

Thomas Szasz said that schizophrenia is not a real illness. Brain scans show that there are serious physical problems in the brains of schizophrenics. Therefore Dr. Szasz was full of crap as was already known by anyone who has a family member with schizophrenia.

[mjp]

Finally, since “mental health” and “evil” belong to two, entirely distinct universes of discourse, those who insist upon describing college campus, elementary school, and movie theater killers as “sick” or “mentally ill” are no more justified in regarding them as “evil” than they would be if they described cancer patients as evil.

Whether or not someone has a particular mental illness and whether or not someone is evil are judgments with respect to whether or not someone meets or exceeds the criteria of each condition. It is possible for someone to meet the criteria for both mental illness and evil at the same time since they have different criteria.

[ClearBlueSky]

Yes we can have it both ways because its reality. One can be chemically
Unbalanced or genetically mentally ill without BEING evil. Their evil acts are the results of mental illness. It is also true that one can be eminentally sane and be evil. Mental illness is biological. Evil is spiritual. Some mental illness can be treated. Evil cannot. Mengele was evil and sane. Someone who thinks he is from Alpha Centauri is insane but not evil. Choice is also a factor with evil. Conscious deliberate choice as well as a degree of satisfaction in being/doing evil defines evil . Choice is not a part of insanity. An insane person thinks people walking on the street are zombies trying to kill him , so he runs them over with his car. An evil person runs them down because he feels like killing znd likes it. An insane evil person thinks he has the right to kill zombies and humans and enjoys the carnage.

[4Liberty]

1) Thomas Szasz’s works are awesome. Amazing writer, everyone should read one of his scholarly books. You will feel smarter by page 2.

2) The only reason tyrants want to expand ‘mental illness’ labels is to use it, under the pseudoscience of “Obamacare,” to seize Americans’ guns because we’ll be “officially diagnosed” with some made-up “illness” or “disorder” such as an obsession with buying one kind of potato chip, playing ‘too many’ computer games, your common sense “phobia” about trillion-dollar deficits or [Fill in your favorite hobby or sane political concern HERE].

3) “Tyrannical tendency” is itself a form of mental illness under their description but never be DXed.

[exDemMom]

In order for someone to be a murderer, their brain has to be wired wrong. There is nothing wrong with pointing out that people who commit such acts are seriously abnormal.

However, the leftist notion is that someone who is mentally ill is incapable of controlling or understanding his/her actions. That is completely untrue. Psychopathic murders know murder is wrong, and they know exactly what they are doing when they commit murder. Often, they enjoy committing murder. The fact that they are mentally ill—that something is demonstrably wrong in their brains—should not excuse their behavior or be used to exonerate them.

Once they commit murder, they prove themselves less than human, and should be put down the way a vicious dog would be put down. It’s a matter of public safety.

[hinckley buzzard]

When one looks at the issue correctly, ie determining mental illness first, then assessing the potential for violence, it is found that the "mentally ill" are no more violent than the general population. Furthermore, lethal violence is such an infrequent occurrence, to predict who may become violent is objectively impossible.

The whole debate is founded on invalid premises.