Mentally ill people..

[Fire Walk With Me]

123. The people in GD who are making these absolutist, draconian, ignorant decistions for all

"mentally ill" persons are so uninformed regarding actual mental illness it is beyond appalling. I see much self-congratulatory back patting and little understanding that "mental illness" covers an extreme range of symptoms, characteristics, and treatments.

It is an extreme prejudice to bunch everyone into the category of potential killer. Do all homosexuals have AIDS, and should they be locked up lest they infect "the rest of us"? Insurance companies attempted to ID them and it would have been toxic, devastating, and inhuman much less inhumane to single out victims of a deadly disease for screening against coverage, much less petitioning to remove them from society. Which is what you are suggesting here, en mass. This is hideous beyond words. You have no concept of wards and asylums. Spend a month or two in one and I strongly believe you'd have an entirely different take on the issue of forcing anyone you wish into a box against their will.

Doesn't anyone else see the extremely slippery slope upon which this tilts? How can anyone justify force against an entire minority just to protect their own skin? Come countries have done this, described a target group as The Other, in order to have the population see them as less then themselves, as less than human, so that stuffing them away and even mass-murdering them would not seem a crime at all. Because they're less than, they're not like us. Guess what? Self-preservation at the cost of freedom for an entire minority is an astonishingly brutal proposal. At least Swift was being humorous in his Modest Proposal but I detect no humor in GD these last few days. I see searching for simple solutions to complex problems. Locking people up is horrible, it is medieval, when support and adequate treatment is the real, humane answer. Guess who loves to cut this? Republicans. Why aren't people screaming at repubs for helping set up these disasters through enormous cuts to mental health care, much less for helping make guns as available as nearly anything else in our society. Scream at them, then help the mentally ill, and most importantly, educate yourselves because your prejudice is intolerable. There are more "mentally ill" people in the country than you would imagine, from addicts in recovery (who have jobs at all levels of society including that of soldier) to Veterans to victims of abuse and rape to average people with chemistry pre-disposed to mild depression. Guess what? I'm dual diagnosis and I dislike guns and violence and always have. I really want to keep it away from me. I despise the fear and violence addiction in our "society". Why not attempt to fix that instead? How many television shows are about violence and not love? Are there any prime-time shows based upon love (not including comedies). Plenty of violence. People vote with viewership and violence is prevalent. As are guns in homes.

Stop blaming the victims of mental illness. Blame the republicans who slash mental health care at seemingly every opportunity, who help gun lobbyists keep in power, who block progressive measures to a more peaceful society and world.