Senseless

The Therapeutic State
Senseless
Did the perpetrator of the Tuscon massacre have a reason?
Thomas Szasz
Posted January 20, 2011

Do people really want to know why, on January 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona, a young man named Jared Lee Loughner engaged in mass murder? I submit they do not. Politicians, psychiatrists, pundits, and the press univocally assert that Loughner's deed is the "senseless" product of mental illness. This belief in a non-existing mental disease causing mass murder is on a par with young children's belief in Santa Claus. It is false but satisfies the believers. The great French essayist Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) sagely observed: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known."

Before his shooting spree Loughner had produced a video he called "My Final Thoughts," stating: "All humans are in need of sleep. Jared Loughner is a human. Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep." On the morning of his massacre he posted a message on his MySpace account acknowledging his sense that he was at the end of his rope and his decision to let go: "Goodbye. Dear friends . . . Please don't be mad at me."

"War is a continuation of politics by other means," said Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831). I suggest that, similarly, mass murder in plain sight, such as Loughner committed, is a continuation of suicide by other means. Sometimes it is called "suicide by proxy" or "suicide by cop."

Loughner, to use his metaphor, has gone to sleep. And so have we if we prefer to believe that his self-destructive and destructive act is the senseless product of his "mental illness" rather than the result of his planned, "sensible" decision. The latter view is unpopular and unacceptable because it acknowledges Loughner's humanity and free will, precisely the qualities that psychiatrists -- aided and abetted by the criminal justice system -- are intent on removing from persons they label "mad." This medicalized view of certain offenses -- usually crimes that particularly upset people -- has, for reasons I have presented elsewhere, become widely accepted in our society, embraced equally by the right and the left.

Normally, we infer the motive for an action from its consequences. For Loughner, one of the consequences of his action is that his life is over, if not biologically then socially. Loughner was well aware of his failure to transition from childhood to adulthood. After years of fruitless travail, he decided to bring his life to a dramatic end. He committed mass murder and let himself be destroyed by the society that, he felt, obstructed his efforts to succeed.

Loughner's crime, like any act, was not senseless at all, provided we are willing to put ourselves in his shoes. Of course, it makes no sense if we are unwilling to do that, denying the personhood of the actor, dismissing a priori his possessing free will, attributing his action to mental disease instead of personal decision.


Crime Is Alleged, Craziness Is Asserted

The only thing we know with certainty about the Loughner case is the identity of the shooter. We do not know why he committed this crime. Nevertheless, commentators ritually refer to Loughner as the "alleged" assailant and confidently assert that he is a crazy, deranged, lunatic, mentally ill and schizophrenic. Former Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC News: "We need to be a little careful about assuming that somehow the rest of society or the political class bears the responsibility for what happened here when it was the act of a deranged, crazed individual that committed a crime."

E. Fuller Torrey, a recognized expert on schizophrenic murderers, agrees. He refers to Loughner as "the alleged shooter" and states that he "is reported to have had symptoms associated with schizophrenia … and almost certainly was seriously mentally ill and untreated…. These tragedies are the inevitable outcome of five decades of failed mental-health policies."

Torrey's remedy for the problem of people being at liberty to commit crimes and suffer the consequences is intensifying the traditional legal-psychiatric practice of incarcerating innocent individuals and calling it "hospitalization" and "treatment" and even "suicide and crime prevention": "The solution to this situation is obvious ­ make sure individuals with serious mental illnesses are receiving treatment. The mistake was not in emptying the nation's hospitals but rather in ignoring the treatment needs of the patients being released…. Others are unaware they are sick and should be required by law to receive assisted outpatient treatment, including medication and counseling…  If they do not comply with the court-ordered treatment plan, they can and should be involuntarily admitted to a hospital."

In contrast, Ashley Figueroa, a former girlfriend of Loughner, told ABC News that she remembers Loughner as "a drug user with a grudge against the government…. I think he's faking everything…. I think that he has been planning this for some time." A writer for Salon.com adds: "Figueroa is not a doctor, and these claims conflict with the opinion of top doctors in the field of psychiatry. (Dr. E. Fuller Torrey actually told Salon that Loughner looks like a 'textbook' case of paranoid schizophrenia.)"

True, Figueroa is not a "doctor." Do we need to have a medical degree to diagnose a person we have never laid eyes on as schizophrenic? Does the fact that Figueroa knew Loughner, that they had a real-life human relationship, count for nothing?

It did not take long for authorities, in Arizona as well as nationally, to heed Torrey's advice to cure would-be "schizophrenic murderers" by constricting the liberties of all Americans. On January 15, exactly one week after Loughner's rampage, one of his victims, J. Eric Fuller, 63, a military veteran, attended a televised forum on "helping the community to heal" and angrily confronted a fellow participant with the metaphor, "You're dead." Fuller's words were interpreted as a "threat," and he was involuntarily committed for a 72-hour mental-health evaluation. According to CBS News, "[Pima County sheriff's spokesman Jason] Ogan said the hospital will determine when Fuller will be released."

The war on words continued in Congress. Before Tucson, the Republicans opposed Obamacare, calling the bill "job killing." Overnight, that term vanished from the political vocabulary, replaced by "job crushing" and other metaphors. Foolishly, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank hailed this piece of semantic surgery: "[House Speaker John] Boehner, in a pair of statements on his Web page, dropped the 'job-killing' phrase in favor of 'job-crushing' and 'job-destroying.' House Majority Leader Eric Cantor … did not allow the k-word to escape his lips at Tuesday afternoon's news conference…. [T]he new GOP majority generally showed a skill that had been lacking in the Republican caucus for the past two years: self-restraint."

Wedded to the idea that we have two kinds of lawbreakers in America, sane and insane, we are unable to attend to the human problems we call "mental illnesses." But not to worry, we can always operate on the vocabulary.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-therapeutic-state/senseless/

Keeping the Liberties of the People Safe

Keeping the Liberties of the People Safe
Thursday, January 20, 2011
by Gary Galles

The recent explosion in the reach of federal government, with far more proposed, has made the question of limits on federal power once again the central political issue. But despite the fact that our founders, who led our move to independence and shaped our Constitution, left us an extensive and invaluable record of their views on that precise issue, modern ignorance of our history severely impoverishes current discussions.

A good example of someone very important but overlooked in the debate we are currently rehashing is Richard Henry Lee, whose birthday is January 20.

Lee is best known for the June 7, 1776, motion calling for the colonies' independence from Great Britain, which led to the Declaration of Independence. He was also, along with Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, a leader in the Continental Congresses, including serving as president. After the Constitution's adoption, he was elected senator from Virginia, and served as one of its first presidents, pro tempore, despite his opposition to the Constitution's ratification, because it needed "bottoming the new constitution on a better bill of rights."

Particularly important is Lee's Letters from the Federal Farmer, which were not only widely published in newspapers but also sold thousands of copies as a pamphlet, providing an important impetus to the Bill of Rights. Today, when what the federal government will be allowed to do is again the primary issue, those arguments merit serious reconsideration.

I can consent to no government, which … is not calculated equally to preserve the rights of all orders of men in the community.

[A] free and enlightened people … will not resign all their rights to those who govern, and they will fix limits to their legislators and rulers … and the latter will know they cannot be passed.

[I]nquire … where and how the essential powers shall be lodged … to secure true liberty.

[Hope] cannot justify the impropriety of giving powers, the exercise of which prudent men will not attempt, and imprudent men will … exercise only in a manner destructive of free government.

[W]hy in laying the foundation of the social system, need we unnecessarily leave a door open to improper regulations?

[W]e cannot form a general government in which all power can be safely lodged … either for the purposes of government or the preservation of liberty … there will be an unreasonable accumulation of powers in the general government.

Should the general government … look for a support in a system of influence, the government will take every occasion to multiply laws … considering these as so many necessary props for its own support.

When I recollect how … people contended in the cause of liberty, and carefully weighed the importance of taxation, I can scarcely believe we are serious in proposing to vest vast powers of laying and collecting internal taxes in a government … it is not probable that any prudent congress will attempt to lay and collect internal taxes … the power would be improperly lodged in congress, and … might be abused by imprudent and designing men.

[W]e ought not to lodge [powers] as evidently to give one order of men in the community undue advantages over others; or commit the many to the mercy, prudence, and moderation of the few.

[N]ational laws ought to yield to inalienable or fundamental rights ­ and national laws, made by a few men, should extend only to a few national objects. This will not be the case with the laws of congress.

[M]en who govern will, in doubtful cases, construe laws and constitutions most favorably for increasing their own powers; all wise and prudent people, in forming constitutions, have drawn the line, and carefully described the powers parted with and the powers reserved … to see what rights are established as fundamental, and must not be infringed upon, in making laws in the society.

[W]e see all important powers collecting in one center, where a few men will possess them almost at discretion.

Our countrymen are entitled to an honest and faithful government; to a government of laws and not of men … if the constitution or social compact be vague and unguarded, then we depend wholly on the prudence, wisdom and moderation of those who manage the affairs of government … uncertain and precarious.

[S]ee abuse in the exercise of power more effectually guarded against.

Fortunate it is for the body of a people, if they can continue attentive to their liberties … and constitutional barriers for their permanent security.

Liberty, in its genuine sense, is security to enjoy the effects of our honest industry and labors, in a free and mild government.

The people have a right to hold and enjoy their property according to known standing laws, and which cannot be taken from them without their consent.

In free governments, the people … follow their own private pursuits, and enjoy the fruits of their labor with very small deductions for the public use.

Our true object is to give full efficacy to one principle … to render force as little necessary as possible.

[A]s long as the people are free they will preserve free governments… [W]hen they shall become tired of freedom, arbitrary government must take place.

The distinction, in itself just, that all powers not given are reserved, is in effect destroyed in this constitution … the people, by adopting the constitution, give many general undefined powers to congress, in the constitutional exercise of which the rights in question may be affected.

[T]he powers delegated to the government must be precisely defined … and clearly be of such extent as that, by no reasonable construction, they can be made to invade the rights and prerogatives intended to be left in the people.

We must consider this constitution, when adopted, as the supreme act of the people, and in construing it hereafter, we and our posterity must strictly adhere to the letter and spirit of it, and in no instance depart from them.

[A] nation, well versed in the science of government, does not conceive it to be necessary or expedient for the man entrusted with the common defense and general tranquility, to possess unlimitedly the powers in question, or even in any considerable degree.

By the proposed system, the federal head will possess, without limitation, almost every species of power that can, in its exercise, tend to change the government or to endanger liberty.

According to Forrest McDonald, Lee believed that "men are born with certain rights, whether they are honored in a particular society or not," and was therefore "imbued with an abiding love of liberty and a concomitant wholesome distrust of government." And in our current era where the founding generation's consideration of the proper, narrow limits to impose on federal power has eroded to whether the federal government is to be subject to virtually any limits, his insights are particularly important. He knew that "The first maxim of a man who loves liberty should be never to grant to rulers and atom of power that is not most clearly and indispensably necessary for the safety and well-being of society," and that "It must never be forgotten … that the liberties of the people are not so safe under the gracious manner of government as by the limitation of power." Modern Americans need to relearn those same lessons.


Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.

http://mises.org/daily/4980

Idaho GOP may try to ‘nullify’ health care law

Idaho GOP may try to 'nullify' health care law
The last time a state tried that tactic, the president sent the Navy.
BY BRIAN MURPHY - bmurphy@idahostatesman.com
Copyright: © 2011 Idaho Statesman
Published: 01/20/11

One day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal President Barack Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Republicans in the Idaho Legislature plan to unveil a bill that would nullify the health care reform package in the state.

"We're simply saying, as a sovereign state of Idaho, we respectfully decline to recognize the federal government's action in this area," said Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian.

Sen. Monty Pearce, R-New Plymouth, said the proposal was undergoing last-minute changes and should be ready Thursday with committee introduction in the House on Friday or Monday.

Gov. Butch Otter foreshadowed the legislative action during his State of the State speech last week.

"We are exploring all our options, including nullification," he said.

In his speech, Otter said the state faced exorbitant costs from the legislation passed in 2009. But later, Otter said the law has no impact on the 2012 budget.

Nullification is a theory that states are allowed to declare federal law null and void within their territory if they deem it unconstitutional -- and it's not a new idea. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison created the concept in the Kentucky Resolutions in 1798, repudiating the Alien and Sedition Acts.

"Nullification ... a rightful remedy," read the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799.

In 1832, South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification in response to federal tariffs the state felt were too high.

President Andrew Jackson sent ships and said the state was on "the brink of insurrection and treason." A compromise on the tariff was eventually reached.

Several Southern states pursued nullification in response to the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision desegregating public schools. The Supreme Court later ruled states could not nullify court decisions.

But the impetus for Idaho's proposed action comes from Thomas E. Woods Jr., the author of "Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century." Woods spoke at Boise State on Nov. 10 in a speech sponsored by the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the BSU Conservative Student Coalition.

The book is a hot topic around the Legislature.

In it, Woods writes, "Nullification begins with the ... point that a federal law that violates the Constitution is not law at all. It is void and of no effect. ...

"It is up to the states, the parties to the federal compact, to declare it so and thus refuse to enforce it."

He writes: "It would be foolish and vain to wait for the federal government or a branch thereof to condemn its own law. Nullification provides a shield between the people of a state and an unconstitutional law from the federal government."

Idaho is among the states already suing the federal government over the health care legislation. In a separate case, a federal judge in Virginia declared part of the law unconstitutional.

"The states created the Constitution and the federal government. Why should the creature be more powerful than the creator when it comes to deciding what the Constitution really meant?" asked Rep. Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home.

"If you leave it up to the federal government to decide what that Constitution really means, they will invoke more power and more power and more power because that's the nature of man."

This is just the latest attempt by Idaho lawmakers to fight back against a federal government they say has overstepped its bounds on issues from environmental protection and endangered species to eminent domain and health care.

Generally, lawmakers pass nonbinding resolutions that call on Congress to change federal law. This would go one step further ­ and could set up a battle, though more likely one in court than on the high seas.

At least six other states are talking about similar measures.

"You'll see other states follow suit. Idaho will be on the front end," Fulcher said. "Statewide there is support for it. Constituents by and large across the state of Idaho support this process."

Brian Murphy: 377-6444


http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/01/20/1495036/idaho-gop-may-try-to-nullify-health.html

Ron Paul: Blather About the Constitution Is a Trick

Ron Paul: Blather About the Constitution Is a Trick
Posted by Lew Rockwell on January 20, 2011 08:54 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pfMlFqaQqvE

Re: Ballgirl shows pros how to catch the ball

So do we now have to call batboys/girls and ballboys/girls bat retrievers and ball retrievers? 

I know many of the players are dogs but the kids?    Woof, woof. woof.

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 3:42 AM, Keith In Köln <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:

<Grin>!!  I love it!!

 

 

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 6:56 PM, GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> wrote:

That is GREAT!

And I LOVE the term Ballgirl.

I'm sorry, but not really.

Great link, thanks

On Jan 18, 12:39 pm, studio <tl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmSZwj4q3Lc
>
> One of, if not the most, amazing catch ever in the history of
> baseball...

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