A. Poor driving is hardly a condition, now is it?
B. Actually, reckless driving is a criminal offense for which said driver was liable for government sanction, now isn’t it?
So you’re actually going to suggest we don’t lock people up for criminal acts. You do realize that’s a non-starter, no? Let alone that it has no bearing on the debate of whether society should take measures to protect itself from people based on an innate condition.
I don’t think the fact that you don’t know if he’s aware of actual events around him or not makes him dangerous, and that’s all the man was saying. That you don’t know anything about his abilties or whether he’s a danger to himself or others, just that he was once diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and you’re prepared to treat him like a criminal for no other reason than that.
Many KKK and Aryan Nations folk believe they are under imminent threat from non-whites. I guess that’s justification for locking them all up (probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, but that’s a different issue 
).
The fact that someone may or may not be aware of actual events does not imply that they believe they are under imminent threat. You hear about the few paranoid schizophrenics that do believe that and act aggressively upon it; you don’t hear about the many that do not.
Guinastasia thinks I don’t sound sufficiently schizzy
…and EsotericEnigma thinks I’m so sick I don’t understand how sick I am:
From this, can we conclude that Guinastasia is sick and in need of treatment, since she’s sufficiently sick that she doesn’t see how sick I am?
::scampers off giggling and capering::
Laigle, you may or may not be aware of things around you, too. Statement of incontrovertible fact.
Bzzt. Do try another strawman. I’d suggest saying I want to treat him like a heretic, but that’s already been tried. I want to treat him like someone who is ill. Period. End of fucking story. Nice try on the childish, purile race/religion/politics bullshit all, but it’s getting you nowhere.
Schizophrenia is a valid medical disorder. It causes the sufferer to be incapable of distinguishing reality from delusion. Delusions for paranoid schizophrenics generally revolve around the idea that they are under imminent threat from people around them for no particular reason. This is not a moral judgement. It’s a symptom of a disease.
A disease which, I might add, is treatable in many if not most cases. However, the nature of the illness causes those suffering it often refuse treament. Look at the comments in this thread. “You can’t make me take pills, I don’t need pills, the pills infringe on my liberty, you’re persecuting us all, you’re just like the Klan!”
This is someone who needs medication to prevent them from being a threat to others, who refuses medication, and who must thus be put into a system of monitored treatment because they cannot provide care for themselves.
In the 1970s I was a Psychiatric Nurse and it was a common event for the police to bring in some floridly psychotic individual that they had found on the streets. We would assess them , and if appropriate admit them under a schedule (a legal document that allowed us no more than 2 days before the patient was presented to a legal/medical panel to assess their competence). They would be medicated and often begin to function again, and would then be returned to their usual environment with the support of a community health team.
With the demise of the Psychiatric hospital system, as pre-empted by Ronald Reagan (RIP) in California these people are now consigned to lives of abject misery on the streets. I see them every day - 30 years ago they were being cared for in public institutions.
Largely these people were admitted because they were likely to cause harm to themselves, not others.
A habit of choosing to drive recklessly, which is what cellphone addicts do whenever they pick up the phone under inappropriate conditions, borders on sociopathic behavior. Locking up cellphoners would reduce their threat to society, and might even help them learn to think before they do something stupid and dangerous.
If a person kills someone, it doesn’t matter to the victim what the killers state of mind was at the time of death. Flipped out paranoid, or thoughtless car-phoner, you still end up just as dead. So why discriminate on the basis of the killers state of mind? Should we allow our personal squeemishness towards those with classically defined mentall illnesses to blind us to the larger threat posed by inconsiderate jerks with cellphoners?
That said, I don’t much like the idea of stripping people of their freedom without damned good evidence that they pose a threat to society.
Well… in all honesty AHunter3, you really don’t, and please don’t take this the wrong way as if I am imputing your credibility. I know nothing (really) of you and your mental health history, other than some of the threads I have seen where you discuss the ensnaring and stigmatizing nature of modern mental health treatment paradigms.
You have a very acute sense, and IMO, a largely accurate real world perspective on the current limits of medically diagnosing and treating serious mental health problems. I suppose the problem in seeing you - keyboard to keyboard - as a “paranoid schizophrenic” is that the condition in my layman’s experience, based on the various paranoiacs I have met in my life (and I’m calling them that simply because IMO they behaved in an irrational and paranoid fashion), there is a seeming absolute inability to look outside the paranoia and understand that they are ill. Someone who can do this, consistently and successfully, is not a “paranoid schizophrenic”. You apparently do this conversationally, and without medication.
In the show, the doctor they referenced as specialist on PS referred to it, as essentially having a “broken brain” and that there was no cure, period. The only real option was medication, and even that had its limits.
And yet here you are politely, rationally, cogently discussing the problem in all its details from a seemingly Olympian perspective. No one wants to dis your PS cred, but if what’s supporting this definition (for you) is the egregious mis-diagnosis of whatever your problems were at the time, by some professionals in the past, the notion of your being really PS * is* a bit difficult to comprehend, (keyboard to keyboard at least).
Have you been around a person with schizophrenia over a period of months or years? Often the condition cycles from better to worse, and back again. When times are good, it’s not unusual for people with the disease to come across as cogently as does AHunter3. But you’d never know that if your only experience has been with strangers at a time of crisis.
The thing to understand, astro, is that, like most mental disorders, schizophrenia isn’t an either/or thing. There are degrees of it. On the one end of the spectrum, there are people who have no ability to determine what’s real. On the other end, there are people like me, who can basically function in society (even if we are considered a little odd) but have episodes of non-lucidity (in my case, triggered by stress).
I work with several diagnosed schizophrenics at a non-profit that helps menatla healthcare consumers and their families, and contrary to your expectations, they look and act like ordinary people. As has been said, it’s not a off/on dichotomoy between sanity and a full-on delusional state. Most folks with schizophrenia can live full, happy lives with the help of medication and continual monitoring of their health. I count my lucky stars that I wasn’t saddled with a brain disorder and have to live with the stigma perpetuated by people who know the disease only from the inaccurate stereotypes they see in movies and TV.
For more info on schizophrenia, here’s a fact sheet to clear up some of the misconceptions about this illness.
Point taken re the TV examples, but the real life interactions (maybe 10 or so individuals total over time) I mentioned were in my day to day worklife in dealing with prospective clients and customers as a Bethesda Marriott front desk clerk in my youth, a Radio Shack clerk and manager in my twenties and a commercial real estate agent in my 30’s until the present. Most of these interections happened a few times with the same people and they never gave me any indication other than that they were full on 24/7 delusional, as was the lady in the show. If PS is a disease that cycles in degree and intensity then AHunter3’s perspective is perfectly understandable, and I apologize for mis-understanding the scope of it’s manifestions.
No, you don’t. That is not the way other ill people are treated. I know because I’m chronically ill myself, and no one’s forcing medication on me or threatening to put me away if I don’t take it regularly.
*Uh, where did I mention race, religion, or politics? Let me see…nowhere. Seems like you may be suffering from delusions. Perhaps we’d better start shoving some antipsychotics down your throat now.
*Why are you so sure that AHunter3 is a threat to others? As he said, all you know is that he was once diagnosed as a schizophrenic. What if the diagnosis was a mistake? If he’d proven himself to be a danger to himself or society through violent behavior, attempts of violent behavior, or even threats of violent behavior then that would be one thing, but apparently he has not. If he’s refusing medication that would help him then he’s behaving very, very irresponsibly, but I don’t think either one of us is in a position to determine whether or not medication actually would help him. If you were his psychiatrist or had at least met the guy I might be inclined to take your opinion as to what sort of treatment he requires more seriously.
Really? You have a disease which makes you a danger to others and you have not been medicated, quarantined, or had the health department checking up on you to see that you are being treated? Jeez, I thought the health system here sucked, and I got all that just for TB, hardly a life threatening illness in the states.
Remind me never to move to your neck of the woods.
Maybe you just need glasses, so you could read the word “all” in the quote. Oh, wait, you could, and now you’re just purposefully ignoring the fact that I was referring to other posters in the thread in order to make a quip. :rolleyes:
Boy, that sure sells me on your point of view.
Bullshit. His psychiatrist diagnosed him with a medical condition that requires treatment. You have subsequently plugged up your ears and started the traditional “nu uh, not happening” routine in reference to the fact that he is ill. You are willing to lie, slander, and doubletalk to deny the horrible recourse I’ve proposed:
He needs to take some medicine which will improve his quality of life, and they should be provided by the public if necessary. I know, it’s the worst thing since Mengele. There ought to be a special place in hell for people who even suggest such a thing. And yet here I am, in support of such an unspeakable atrocity.
What you seem to be missing is that, for many people, the medication does not improve their quality of life. Sometimes it helps the symptoms but the side effects are intolerable, and sometimes it doesn’t even help the symptoms.
Wrong. It can, in some cases cause them to be incapable of that distinction.
Wrong again. In most cases, the paranoia is not about individual people, but more generalised and non-specific.
You have zero evidence that this is the case, and you are speaking from ignorance. Go and google ‘schizophrenia myths’. Oh, and while you’re at it, go and look up the horrific range of side effects of antipsychotics, and you’ll understand why people don’t want the drugs. They were bad enough for me to stop taking them.
A few points, if I may. First: Enigma, this is Great Debates. As I understand it, this is the place where we debate controversial issues based on logic and well-argued ideas. Your assertion that AHunter’s position must be flawed, because he is a schizophrenic and his illness keeps him from seeing that you are “obviously” correct, constitutes an ad hominem attack - that is, an attack on the person rather than the ideas. If you don’t agree with what AHunter is saying (and I’m not sure I do, but I’m keeping an open mind), then by all means, use all the rhetorical and logical skills at your disposal to go after his position. But saying, essentially, “you’re wrong because you’re schizo” is demeaning, irrelevent, and puerile.
Regarding the substance of your argument - I would point out that there is a substantive difference between a chipped or infected tooth and schizophrenia, at least as AHunter presents it. (I hasten to add that I myself know very little of schizophrenia.) Severe, chronic pain - as with a chipped tooth - can make it near-impossible to function normally. AHunter’s position seems to be that his condition is not so incapacitating, and that treatment might be - if that is the case, then a schizophrenic declining to seek treatment doesn’t seem to be behaving irrationally - he’s just doing cost/benefit analysis.
It should also be mentioned that people routinely make decisions that are “bad” for them medically. For example, I probably drink to excess more often than I should when I’m at college. I also eat very poorly there - much of my diet is very high in fats and sugars. Arguably, I am risking serious liver and heart disease - would you propose, then, that I not be allowed to eat pizza and drink beer? Your position is that medically unwise decisions are sufficiently non-rational that the state should become involved in them (though perhaps, as you’ve made clear, not through surgery or imprisonment). So, when shall I expect the men in white suits to take me away? Would a Tuesday be good for them?
Another point about treatment for schizophrenia - beyond mere sedation, which I think we can all agree is necessary where somebody is showing an immediate danger to themselves or others, treatments cannot operate without the willingness and cooperation of the patient. Without a full understanding of the particulars of the psychosis, the correct application of anti-psychotics is not possible. Therefore, it’s impossible to effectively ‘treat’ a non-willing schizophrenic back to ‘normality’.
I strongly disagree. The CBA is biased by the fact that the costs of the mental illness are predominantly borne by others, whereas the benefits of not taking the medicine are primarily gained by the schizophrenic. That’s not a good basis for a comparison. It’s also not a valid decision to leave in the hands of only one individual effected by the outcome.
It’s like asking people if they would like taxes reduced to 0% and let future generations pay off their social spending. A lot of people are going to say yes, especially if you specifiy the payoff will probably be several generations down the line and not with any relatives they’ll ever know. But I suspect that if you got input from the eventual billees, you might get a different response.