Okay - I thought it was the timeline that was in question. Not the office. My bad.
Is the contradiction the difference between “candidate for local office” and “candidate for congress?” Well it’s congress… I was trying to be vague to protect their identity.
I’m struggling to decide whether I should post a link to the VA Board of Elections site so that you can see that this person is indeed the Libertarian congressional candidate… it will satisfy your skepticism but I just wouldn’t want people trying to get involved somehow (it would put me in a weird position)…
Let me put it this way, go the Virginia State Board of Elections list of candidates, click on “Congressional Candidates by District” and he is the only Libertarian listed who is running for a Congressional seat… It won’t take much Googling to find out all you need to know about him…
Or you could go to Project Vote Smart choose Virginia, and he is one of only two Libertarian candidates listed there… you can click to a profile…
For the skeptics: Here is a clip from a bio I found about this guy, which talks about his involvement with the church… PM me and I will send you the link to the site with all the identifying info, including the name of the church and where it is, etc.
His web site is a wiki…I was sorely disappointed that the History section doesn’t have several deleted entries about how eeeeeeevil he is.
The story sounds a bit forced (fishy) to me.
I was wondering…don’t hospitals observe a patient for some time before giving him psych drugs? Also, Jason must have acted pretty strange even if he did announce his FBI connection, and campaign. I took a relative to one of these hospitals sometime ago, and they seemed to be, other than the fact that they were state employees, fairly reasonable people. They did intelligent interviews and would rather hear all of the story before jumping in and force feeding drugs to an unwilling victim of Southern justice. The interviewers seemed to want to err on the side of caution, because space and state money could be better utilized elsewhere, rather than on someone with a harmless delusion. YMMV.
One more suspicious thing-when the girl asked for permission to go to restroom, did she announce the reason in front of everybody as the stimulus for the pastor’s diatribe? I can’t see even a wacky pastor going to check her seat if he wasn’t informed of her situation, and I can’t see a girl volunteering this info. To me, the whole story is a bit weak.
As they say, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Just because the hospital you took you relative to was reasonable doesn’t mean that all mental hospitals are going to be the same, unfortunately.
[quote=“nyctea scandiaca, post:1, topic:466578”]
Short version: My mom’s friend is involved in a cultish church, run by a local police officer and attended by a local judge.
Mods, would giving the name of the “church” in this thread constitute libel, or might it be covered under the 1st Amendment?
If it’s safe to do so, why not let us all know the name of this nonsense?
Love, Phil
I will PM all the info to anyone who requests it. Now that the SDMB is indexed by search engines, I’d rather not post it here… Phil - do you want me to PM you??
My e-mail is frankie_bennett@hotmail.com.
Thanks. “Phil”
Pharmakon is an ancient Greek word that means magic spell, remedy or poison
I wouldn’t tell a preacher why I wanted to go to the restroom, I’d just go. But then, I’m not much for church, and haven’t darkened the door of one for 12 years
Wow, someone is held involuntarily in a psych ward merely on the allegation of someone else, with no evidence? Gee, who’d a thunk it? Heck, you’d almost think it could happen to, you know, almost anyone :eek: 
While individual chapters of NAMI and the people in them may differ from venue to venue, we schizzy-libber types have generally found NAMI to be dead set against us in every effort to protect people from involuntary commitment and treatment. Their membership is largely composed of family members, the mindset of whom is most often geared around
a) I need it to be easier to commit my Darling Kid who really needs help but doesn’t realize it, you just don’t know how bad things are in my nuclear family! Those damn shrinks won’t hold him/her, saying he/she is not a danger to self or society, well just because no wrist slitting occurred during that eval period… why don’t they trust a loving parent’s/ sister’s / etc judgment?
b) … and we need Everyone in the World to understand that it isn’t our fault! We did not do potty training wrong! We are not bad family members! It’s a horrid disease and it’s biochemical and stuff, so we’re off the hook!
If you want legal assistance against unwanted/imposed psychiatric treatment, the best resources are usually Protection & Advocacy ¶ orgs that specialize in MH issues. NARPA (National Association of Rights Protection & Advocacy) is a good clearing house.
But there’s damn little precedent for successfully suing or seeking administrative censure post facto for inappropriate incarceration. Good luck with that.
Libel is a civil action; the first amendment applies to the government. Two different things.
Anyway: I don’t think it would be a libel issue, but I’ll ask Gfactor. Don’t tell him I admitted he probably knows more about 1st amendment law than I do. Legally the truth is the ultimate defense and I practically don’t see the church visiting the SDMB. So wait if you like.
However, I’d like to point out that the Virginia board of elections link shows the candidate’s home address, and he identifies himself with the church (and names it) on one Web site - not the one nyctea linked to and one that’s easy to find searching with his real name - so it seems a little late to start worrying about this issue.
I agree with Marley23 here.
In order to establish libel the plaintiff must show that the statements are false. Moreover, in most cases the plaintiff must show harm to reputation.
Assuming what nyctea scandiaca says is true, there’s not a libel issue. I’m not speaking for the board here, btw.
Phil - the info has been sent. Let us know what you think…
“By their fruit you will know them”-I think that Jesus made a clear statement about this.
But if it’s not true (and if nyctea has made no effort to verify it), then it might be a very different story. As others have mentioned, it’s easy enough to identify the young candidate in question, and from there it’s easy enough to determine that there is only one female judge in that county. Given that people here are accusing her of corruption, reputational harm doesn’t seem like a big stretch.
But as Marley said, the cat may be out of the bag now anyway.
I never said in the thread what county she serves in, did I? Where he lives is not necessarily where she serves.
I never accused the judge of “corruption;” although I do think that a judge’s affiliation with a radical religious group is relevant to whether they can be impartial, especially if their pastor sits in their courtroom and watches their cases (which, IMO, would also be an abuse of their position as a police officer). A judge’s political and ideological leanings are relevant and should be held up to public scrutiny - look at the confirmation process Supreme Court Justices go through. I think the public should be wary if a public official - especially one as powerful as a judge or a police officer - is involved with a “cultish” church that makes it a habit of publicly “rebuking” people during their services for their political beliefs or because they have left the church, or if they are involved in turning that person into the FBI or influencing a parent to have a child committed to a mental hospital not in good faith.
It might, but as a public official, the good judge would have to meet the rather heavy burden of proof imposed by New York Times v. Sullivan and its progeny.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=376&invol=254
ETA–it actually hasn’t been decided at the Supreme Court level whether *Sullivan *applies to non-media defendants. Most courts have ruled that it does. http://www.danpinello.com/Hayes.htm