When somebody is not just an idiot but deluded, and that delusion may result in their death, I'm more inclined to think intervention is o.k. It's the same thinking that undergirds petitions to appoint an adult guardian or to involuntarily commit. Which are well-established functions of government, back long before we were worried about creeping socialism and Big Government.
The two instances I proposed are NOT fingers on the same hand. Reporting a crime and then taking it all back is generally considered a crime: if you were lying, then you just got somebody arrested for no reason (a major trauma for them and false report of a crime for you, usually a misdemeanor but sometimes a felony); if you were telling the truth, now you are compounding a felony (also a crime).
Again, this was the law a LONG time ago, not just recently.
Well of course if they're mentally unsound and a danger to themselves you intervene! That's not what you said, though.
Do you have any evidence that the lady in the article is mentally unsound?
Be careful. In the eyes of a government employee, *you* could be considered “idiotic”.
Believe in God? you must be a simpleton.
Own a gun? You’re clearly a vile fiend.
All it takes is the right—or wrong-—person to believe you require the “care” and “protection” of The State, and you are in the same situation as the woman in this account.
By the way, government overreach, corruption and tyranny are also “well established functions” of government-—be careful what you defend on the basis of a practice being “well-established”.