Legislation by Panic

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Legislation by Panic

by Karen Kataline

Many have now recognized that we have a dangerously powerful and corrupt government, but even conservatives suddenly forget that, when they’re in a state of fear and panic. That’s the kind of amnesia a corrupt government loves to spread like a pandemic.

MissLunaRose12, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The familiar lament, “We have to do something!” usually means, “I want the government to do something!  -even if it violates other people’s rights. –even if it might lead to the violation of my own rights.”

Mental health policy is just one area where it’s easy to get sucked into that trap. After this writer lays out some of the historic atrocities committed by totalitarian governments, he proceeds to call for more government in the form of a return to involuntary commitments.

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Has he forgotten that the old Soviet Union used mental hospitals to forcibly imprison their political opponents under the guise of “mental health?”

Improving the availability of mental health services is certainly a good idea but under whose jurisdiction?  The government has proven it has a relentless interest in the lives and medical records of citizens. This, like so many other central planning ideas results in the opposite of their stated intentions.

Safety and confidentiality are a necessity for good mental health treatment. Surveillance and bureaucratic red tape deter people from seeking it.

Mental health professionals already have a professional responsibility to report any client whom they believe to be a danger to himself or others and that’s a sensible thing, but no one including them can tell the future.  As it is, the system of reportage and follow-up has failed again and again. In a common sense world this make the case for improving what we have, not expanding ineffectiveness further.

What’s more, do we really want to increase acceptance of the idea that people ought to be punished for crimes they have yet to commit? That’s a giant camel’s nose under the tent of prohibiting the rights of people who hold views we don’t like.

If you can never fully predict a crime, you can never fully prevent it. The best way to reduce casualties and stop a killer is to empower the victims and their protectors, not disarm them.

It’s a fool’s errand to call for more government in an environment like the one in which we now find ourselves.

The first thing any criminal does is disarm his victim. The right of a law-abiding citizen to protect himself and his family has never been a threat to those who intend him no harm.  What does that tell us about the openly hostile Left which seeks to disarm them now?

As Steven Crowder says, “Change my mind.”

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Karen Kataline’s style has been described as “funny, feisty, but fair.” She hosts Spouting Off, a live, call-in talk show covering politics, pop culture, and social psychology. She maintains an active blog and her Op-Eds can be seen online at Fox News, Investor’s Business Daily, Western Journal, Town Hall, The Daily Caller, FrontPage Mag, and The American Thinker.


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