I’ve come to a rather absolute conclusion: nobody, under any circumstances, should be subjected to things done to them that they’ve expressed a “no” to. Not unless they’re being arrested for something they’ve actually done already, a crime, an assault or intrusion that’s legally actionable regardless of who does it.
I don’t care what their cognitive state is.
I agree that there are a small percent of people at any given time whose mental state is such that they don’t understand the repercussions of what they’re doing. Doesn’t matter. They’re vastly outweighed by the immense number of people subjected to involuntary coercive treatment and incarceration based on other people’s assumption that they don’t understand the repercussions of what they’re doing. And/or that’s the excuse. So no. You don’t get to use that as an excuse.
Autonomy is more important than staying alive or being kept safe.
Well, that is a point of view. However, if someone is wielding a firearm with stated intent to shoot up a school or business, or making other credible threats of severe violence, I don’t think you are going to find many takers for just waiting to see how things play out. Your ‘autonomy’ stops where it evidently impinges on someone else’s ‘autonomy’ to keep breathing.
I sort of agree. @AHunter3
I expect children and animals to be protected in all things.
There are adults who I feel, deserve protection.
If the law is broken by minors and adults who intellectually don’t understand there needs to be a legal rep who gets them the help they need to be made to understand or to explain a reason to a judge why they can’t be made to understand.
But, yeah adult persons who have no diagnosable mental disability should not be pampered or petted in today’s society.
You don’t get anymore leeway than the next person. Without a reasonable, to the majority it may affect, excuse.
I’m not gonna judge you personally. But someone will.
If I think you’re taking advantage of something or someone I may stay away. I won’t help you succeed in taking away from others.
I’m basically giver. Of all things. I like to nurture and help. But, I won’t help someone who won’t help themselves or at least try very hard to.
If we’re talking about violent rape, date rape or sexual assault of course the assaulted party only has to deem it’s a “no” in their mind. They don’t have to do or say anything, but just not want it to be.
They are never at fault. Or shouldn’t be made to feel like it. Of course it doesn’t always happen.
Autonomy has been lost by the aggrieved person.
That has been discussed in many threads. I find it highly unlikely that a Doper here for awhile hasn’t read some of these.
Hard disagree. I can think of numerous examples where IMHO intervention is warranted.
Someone who is drunk and is about to get in their car to drive. No crime has been committed yet. Should we wait until they actually get behind the wheel to take any preventive measures?
Someone with a history of acting violently while in a psychotic episode, who is having such an episode. Should we wait until they hurt / kill someone until we intervene? Let’s say they do commit a crime and we intervene. Should that intervention be limited to incarceration without treatment, assuming they refused (which is likely to be the case)?
Those who are suicidal / are in the process of committing suicide. Should we just let them? What about if they reach a point where they are no longer capable of refusing, such as someone who overdosed and is in comatose state? What if they attempt to kill themselves in some way that is likely to traumatize others, such as jumping off a tall building onto a busy street?
These are just some examples in which IMHO intervention is warranted even though someone may be refusing.
Solid point. Along with Stranger_on_a_Train’s point about someone waving a lethal firearm around. Someone who is posing a genuine credible threat to other folks’ safety goes in the same category as someone hurting others.
Nope on that one, hard no. Unless they pose an immediate credible threat, in the same sense as the gun-toting individual or the drunk attempting to go for a drive. But no allowable reference to the so-called “psychotic” mental state in and of itself. None of this “you are obviously in a state of mind where we have to lock you up because of the myriad things we think you MIGHT do”.
Yes, you let them do so if they’re conscious. Unconscious, intervene away. As Judi Chamberlin once said, “You have the right to commit suicide but you do not have the right to commit suicide in my living room”.
I woke up thinking about four year olds. The children problem. Thought back on my own childhood.
We do have a status-of-childhood problem, this specific authority and intervention problem as it affects young people. I don’t think it is practical to say you can’t prevent toddlers from tearing off and doing whatever they may wish to do without supervision, and you can’t always follow along behind them; and they do often need protection from themselves. But I’d move the bar. Eighteen is ridiculous. I’d suggest ten.
Ten year-olds do things like refuse to eat healthy foods, take their medicine, get out of danger.
Your ten year-old has an infection and refuses to take medicine. Intervene? They are about to try and do a bicycle jump with some stupid and dangerous ramp they through together. Intervene? They refuse to get into the car to go to visit grandma. Intervene?
In your email, you say you don’t care about their cognitive state – what about severely autistic kids? Kids with developmental disabilities?
The social world would be somewhat different if kids grew up in it with adult authority looming at 10. I’d have strongly preferred it.
No intervention.
I’m not saying some people wouldn’t go unrescued, unprotected, endangered due to us not intervening. Some would.
I’m saying we’ve built a worse world by intruding on vast portions of the population with this notion that we can discern who is and who is not capable of making their own decisions.
I guess that’s certainly one viewpoint. I think you were probably a pretty well-behaved kid who didn’t need some of the other interventions that lots of kids need.
At some point, a child has to go to bed, stop watching TV or playing video games, has to do their homework, has to take their medicine, has to put on their seatbelt, etc.
BTW, if you want me to see your replies, you should reply to my post or @ me.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that invervention happens to any large percentage of the population, let alone “vast portions”.
People who are having a psychotic break, drinking or medicating to the point of self-harm, or not thinking clearly enough to protect themselves from harm should get interviention to keep them safe. Doing so is compassionate, healthy, and does more long term good than bad. It’s one of the parts of being in a human society.
I’m pretty sure that this isn’t an accurate description of our OP. They have a history of interactions with the medical/psychiatric professions and I believe they come to their positions from a point of well-lived experience and honest appreciation of the consequences.
I don’t know the OP’s background, other than gender non-conformity, which can certainly lead to lots of medical and psychiatric interactions, but has nothing to do with a kid who refuses to put on a seatbelt, take medicine, etc.
That is, you can be non-conforming and “badly behaved” in a way that doesn’t present an immediate danger to your life. However, if badly behaved included cutting or suicide attempts, that doesn’t change my position that a 11 year-old who is cutting himself or a 15 year-old who attempts suicide should have no intervention. ETA: meaning, there should be intervention for children who put themselves in danger.
I’ve known and worked with a great many kids who had extreme levels of responsibility thrust upon them around that age. In every single case it fucked them up badly. The chemicals that your body creates when you’re under constant stress (such as the stress of having to be an adult far too early) are poison to a developing body and mind.
Ten year olds aren’t tiny adults and it’s not because we’ve “built a society” that coddles them or whatever. It’s because they’re still developing cognitively and emotionally.
A world where “adult authority looms” over children at that age is a frankly terrifying dystopia to me, though one I’m sure many conservatives would love. There are already pushes in several states to loosen child labor laws, for example.