Are we missing a human right?

Cause and effect, Chip. Why limit yourself to a single option? Why dictate a particular method of treatment when others can and do work without causing brain damage and other side effects in the process?

Whether or not someone needs a medication is a side issue, anyway. What I was asking is if you've changed your mind and now think it's ok to force people into a particular mental treatment?

People who are unable to make rational decisions for themselves should be given the most effective treatment. It's no longer just about them. It's about the fact that they've become a burden on the rest of society. If you're capable of managing your own care then you can try any half-brained treatment you're willing to pay for. If I'm managing your care through my tax dollars because you're unable to do it for yourself and have no family to do it for you then you'll take the drugs. Society doesn't just have an obligation to you not to infringe on your freedoms, you also have an obligation to it to be as self-sufficient as possible.

I want to echo Chip's words - he's stating things very well.

As for your question here, Ananda - the "single option" originally is not taking drugs - before people suffering a disoder and their family realize how crippling it can be. For others, with milder cases of disorders, some people *do* choose to avoid drug treatment and live with the consequences.

But this isn't what you're arguing. It's *you* who are arguing for the "single option" - and it's clear to me now that you're voicing beliefs dictated to you by people who understand psychotic disorders just as much as any other non-medical professional.

http://www.solitarytrees.net/cowen/misc/psywar.htm
http://webquake.net/archive/narconon/

And thus the fascism was born.

I'll bow out for now. Certainly there's more basic arguments for human rights to be made than the esoteric one of personal mental and spiritual dignity. After all, we're still busy imprisoning and killing people just because they *might* become terrorists. I'll pick on some other part of our culture of fear for a while, then.

Thanks for the input, folks.

No, I think these are great things to discuss, but I think that your stated viewpoints are just plain out of touch with what real people suffering from psychotic illnesses go through.


Nice red herring.

Ananda, if you truly want to explore this subject, you need to objectively research both sides of it, not just listen to the dogma you're fed by a particular group. (And I would say the same regardless of which group it is.)

Skip it, Hiro. You've already made the point that you are an ignorant bigot. If you don't want to debate the actual question I brought up, just drop it.

I question many religions / organizations intentions and beliefs, especially my own. That doesn't make me a bigot. I think I've been more than adequate with my responses actually addressing your questions, as evidenced by the fact that others in the thread are saying similar things to me - and you're not calling them bigots.

Or are you?

EDIT: "especially my own" added.

No, just you. Everyone else has been quite thoughtful and courteous.

Hiro is making an entirely valid, and actually very broad-minded, point here. It's not good to just accept whatever one particular entity (be it person, religion, newspaper, corporation, whatever) tells you about something. It's very open-minded to take in information and views from a variety of sources, then comes to their own conclusions. I applaud anyone who goes through that difficult, but highly worthwhile, process.

Following your argument through to its natural (and somewhat absurd) conclusion:

Take a car accident... the driver is unconscious and dying. Emergency workers and paramedics would be required to wait until the driver becomes lucid long enough to request hospitalization, medication and perhaps operation. Perhaps they're delerious instead of unconscious and resist/deny assistance? Should the emergency worker override the (hopefully) temporary momentary lack of sound judgement?

Yes that's extreme, sure it's easy to say "Well obiously they're life is at risk!" but if you want a law passed that endorses a thing the fewer "Except this, except that." clauses the better.

On the plus side, it would probably bring down everyone's insurance premiums.

On the minus side, that's a lot of people left for dead.



Different locks have different keys. If one doesn't key doesn't fit you keep trying until you find one that does. Particularly in AIDS medication, where what works in some people doesn't work in others... and often only works for a while not forever, requiring changing the medication again when it begins to fail.

Toni, this is a long-standing dispute between me and Hiro. Did you notice just now that all he had to do was attach some anti-Scientology link and immediately you're assuming that I'm not considering information from a wide variety of sources?

His is not a valid point, it's simply an ad hominem attack. Everything I've said is based on my own conclusions after already doing just what you recommend.

Alright. What I've got here is my first absolutist statement:

"No person shall be subjected to any form of mental or spiritual treatment against their will."

I modified this by saying that education of children and incarceration of criminals under due process of law would not be considered mental or spiritual treatment.

The general sentiment following that is that if someone is incapable of making a decision about mental treatment for himself, then society should be able to make it for him. A lot of people keep mixing general medical treatments into this, IMO missing the point, but whatever.

So, on what basis do we decide when to take away this right? Or to put it another way, what protections would you wish to have if someone else is concluding that you are incompetent?

Nice try reading my mind, but I didn't write that you were doing or not doing anything. I was simply responding to what the discourse, and his basic point is a fair one with which I agree - one should always consider a wide variety of points. I would hate to be automatically against Scientology as much as I would hate to be automatically for it. Just because someone criticizes something they're not a bigot, and there are valid points for and against darn near every idea.


Excellent, glad to hear it. No worries then.

Actually, ad hominem is when you attack a person. I'm attacking the belief that you have about psychiatry, and I've kept my comments about what I think of your religion as a whole out of this.

You could raise a case that my comments are straw man, and that's debateable.

But for the sake of civility, perhaps we both should just drop it.