Bricker
January 13, 2011, 1:27am
534
Diogenes_the_Cynic:
I assure you, the government already has this right. I’ve seen it happen several times, but the individual actually has to make an attempt or declare an intention to hurt themelves or others. There is no campaign by the left to prevent such people from being detained, just a lack of resources to evaluate and treat them. God forbid some Richie Rich has to pay a few extra cents in taxes.
In the earlier thread, there was plenty of opinion that the threat to shoot yourself was (or should not be) sufficient to commit someone – what if the guy was joking?
I watched the long version and all I see is a pissed off guy, in pain, who made a silly statement. The kind of statement any one of us might make when some unfortunate accident befalls us. A variant of an old “I already have one broken leg, might as well double down” statement of fatalistic irony. Thereupon, due to (i) an excess of zeal and/or (ii) a hyper-inflated need to cover-my-ass and/or (iii) an inability to substitute a reasonable interpretation of the situation for a superficial pro-forma requirement for actions, the poor guy is subjected to further pain and indignity including multiple electrical shocks, handcuffing, being forced to lie back on his handcuffed arms, and additional restraints. Everybody is lucky he didn’t actually have a heart attack. I don’t think that anyone can reasonably maintain that this whole dog and pony show was any benefit to him.
So my question remains: given the situation, and given the laws and the guidelines in place, and given these exact circumstances as they presented; How could our laws be modified so that the outcome for this guy would be better? And could that modification be made while ensuring that outcomes for other people who have been well served by the present laws and guidelines will not be negatively affected?
This is where the left needs to take some share of the blame.