The Wrath

I don't doubt that she is basically a good person. I actually think that about quite a few politicians who I vehemently disagree with, including both Obama and Bush. The Clintons...not so much. And I agree that "stupid" and "ignorant" are not the same thing but--in common, everyday speech--"stupid" can be used to mean "ignorant" or "uneducated," in addition to the more appropriate "unintelligent."

What's wrong with Crash? I thought it was pretty good, philosophically, in terms of trying to dispel racial stereotypes and showing how people can overcome whatever prejudices they might have.

I disagree. I think Bush is actually a very smart man, if not well-spoken. But I don't think the attacks on Palin are unjustified. Depending on what you mean by "stupid," then you can make a very real argument that Palin is stupid. If stupid means "fundamentally unable to comprehend certain things," then maybe not. But if stupid means "ignorant," then it's pretty easy to make the case. How is it that a VP candidate doesn't know what NATO is? Or is unable to name more than 1 SCOTUS decision?

I think One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has some of the greatest scenes ever crafted. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFCXBUC3M70 About 4 minutes in on this next one is especially good, when Billy is able to talk to Nurse Ratched for the first time without stuttering. It almost sends chills down my spine when she asks him if he's ashamed, and he looks her straight in the eye and says "No, I'm not." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-HaxWnNEFE But nothing beats the ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3IYZu0pF64

In case you needed more evidence:

On the denial-of-modern-science ladder, this is one step up from Creationism which is, itself, one step up from flat earth theory. Also, a quick scan of the Wikipedia article on Szasz shows that he is involved with Scientology...which, alone, is almost enough reason to discount everything that he says.

Willie Wonka? Sleepy Hollow? Batman? No.

What precisely are you suggesting, Trebor? Also, answer this: do you or do you not accept that there are people who are genuinely mentally ill?

Trebor, you and Dr. Szasz seem to be using similar arguments to the ones Creationists use to debunk evolution. Creationists are fond of pointing various hoaxes and false positives in an attempt to prove that the theory of evolution is wrong. But pointing out that the Piltdown Man was a hoax does not disprove evolution. It simply disproves that the Piltdown Man was real. Similarly, pointing out that mental illnesses can be faked and misdiagnosed does not prove that they do not exist.

He's wrong. Many mental illnesses have known physiological causes within the brain. Some forms of schizophrenia, for instance, are caused by an inability of the left and right hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other. Okay. And even if that were true, it would prove his theories about the validity of mental illness...how, exactly? And this is supposed to prove that there's no such thing as hallucination?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classificatio...isorders#DSM-IV The cases are pretty well-documented. I don't care to look them up, because you'll just turn around and say "he could have been faking mental illness." Well, yeah, and God could have created the universe 6,000 years ago, but made it look billions of years old. Even so, the PTSD thing was just an example. I could come up with a thousand others, and you would probably just deny their validity as well. I trust the psychiatrists who study these things, for the same reason I trust my doctor to identify the warning signs of skin cancer. You seem to be accepting the notion of the author of the article you just posted that the very concept of mental illness is erroneous. If you've already made up your mind that all claims of insanity are bullshit, then there's no evidence I can give you that you'll accept, because you can always just claim the person is faking it. There's a church for people who deny the validity of psychiatry. It's called Scientology. I hear Tom Cruise and John Travolta are involved so, if you do in fact doubt the existence of mental illness, at least you're in good company.

That article seems rather...naive. There are many different kinds of insanity, and I wasn't saying that insanity "causes" crime, per se. But I don't see how someone can deny that there are people who are so out of touch with reality that they literally don't understand what they're doing. Take PTSD for example...there are many examples, particularly from Viet Nam, of veterans waking up and killing their entire families because they thought they were back in the jungle fighting the VC. Did the man want to kill his family? Of course not. Did his PTSD cause him to kill his family? No, but it created the situation where the man killing his family is more likely. He never would have done it, had his perception of reality been accurate.

This is a bit off-topic, but I just have to address this. Are you serious? Murder? Negligent homicide maybe, but MURDER? Man, I hope you never take your children to the park to play catch.

Not that I disagree, but I think you're making it more complicated than it has to be. Regardless of the risks that they take, I have no problem with soldiers having health-care provided by the government, because they are (gasp!) government employees! Health care happens to be part of the compensation they receive for their work...which is fine, especially considering the meager salaries that they receive. It's pretty standard for employers to provide their employees with health care. Why would the government be any different?

It's not a dichotomy, because I realize they go hand in hand...most of the time. But, with the insane, you have to ask yourself which is more important, because they do not necessarily go hand in hand. Punishing a mentally-ill person does not protect society anymore than putting them in a psychiatric hospital and, hopefully, curing them of their illness. Punishing them will also not serve as a deterrent to other mentally-ill people...if it did, then they would not be mentally-ill. With the mentally-ill, punishment and protecting society do not go hand in hand...and I think we have to decide which one is more important. It is not justice if it is done for its own sake. It's the reason we don't take rapists and put them in a cell where their cell mate is a rape machine. Maybe they deserve it, but it serves no purpose and I doubt anyone will argue that we should be doing such things. It's an absurd argument. Just look at the anarchy that happens after any natural disaster (like Katrina) and then let the liberals tell you that fear of legal consequences is not a deterrent against criminal behavior. Agreed.

I'm a bit shocked that a conservative would agree with the notion that the government can run an efficient health care system. Given that he accepts that, it's absurd that his reason for opposing it is that soldiers deserve better care than everyone else. That sounds a lot like my coworker telling me that I should be forced to use the public health care option for because I shouldn't have better care than anyone else. He's saying the exact opposite, but it seems based on the same root principle.

What do you think is the proper way to deal with people who are mentally ill to the point that they are a danger to society? Drudge currently has a headline about a woman who beheaded her infant because the devil told her to do it. There was another case in the past year in Canada where some guy on a Greyhound bus beheaded the guy sitting next to him. Those just aren't things that people do unless they're insane. This is a very divisive issue, where conservatives usually think we should treat them like any other criminal and liberals think they should be psychiatric treatment. I tend to lean more towards the liberal position, and here is why: My first question is "what is the proper function of the criminal justice system?" I think the most important function of the justice system is to protect society, rather than the punish the guilty. Conservatives typically hold the position that the guilty should be inflicted with suffering, in the name of "justice," regardless of whether that suffering helps make society any safer. For normal criminals, the inflicting of suffering absolutely helps protect society, because it serves as a deterrent. But when you're dealing with people whose minds have lost touch with reality, I don't see any benefit. So my personal opinion is that mentally ill people who commit heinous crimes should be put in the care of a psychiatric hospital. The obvious question now is "should they ever be let out?" For some of them, the answer is an obvious "no," because they will never be declared mentally competent to rejoin society. But what about people who, after years of intense psychiatric care, overcome their illnesses? Should they be let go? I'm gonna go ahead and say that, yes, they should. People who are mentally insane can't always tell right from wrong and, often, don't even understand what the results of their actions will be. So I don't think there is a justification for keeping them locked up for the sake of punishment or justice. The only consideration should be whether or not they are still a threat to others...and if a panel of professional psychiatrists says that they are no longer insane, I see no reason why they should not be allowed to rejoin society. The families of the victims won't like it but, luckily, that isn't the concern of the justice system. And it's the reason that criminal cases are named "John Doe vs. the people of (insert jurisdiction here)" rather than "John Doe vs. the family of Jane Doe."

And I'll tell you again. Your opinion, as originally expressed when we first had this conversation, is indefensible and asinine.

I've seen the Truman Show. The Matrix does the same thing, but with Neo. At first, he doesn't believe it, then gradually comes to accept it. The sequels suck, so I won't even address those, except to say that they launch into outright philosophical sermons.

I'm hardly concerned about it. That doesn't mean I can't be irritated when someone expresses an asinine opinion. And, yes, your opinion is asinine. If you want to say you think the movies were made poorly or had bad philosophy, fine...I might actually agree with some of your points. But watching The Matrix and saying that it raises no philosophical issues is like watching Braveheart and concluding that it was about the Italian Mafia.

*sigh* Watch the movie again. The point isn't whether or not you, the audience, are able to differentiate between the 2 worlds. It's whether or not the people living in them can. I'll bet you're the type of movie-watcher who finds no suspense in movies like United 93 because you already know how they end. I can't speak for everyone but, when I watch a movie, I prefer to let it envelop me to the point that I can see things from the vantage points of the characters, rather than with the omniscience of someone who already knows what's going on.

I would say it's worse than the morality of a thief. A thief at least has a semi-rational goal: he wants material possessions. He just has an immoral way of procuring those possessions. The mentality of my coworker is one of someone who doesn't want to steal for his own benefit or for the benefit of anyone else, but to destroy the values of one person so that they are brought down to the level of people who are less well-off. Rather than stealing my car for use by someone else, he wants to blow it up so that no one can use it. I'm reminded of a quote from The Dark Knight, regarding the Joker:

I don't know much about Coolidge. What did he do that was good?

Who, in your opinion, was the last president to actually have a net positive impact on the United States? I think we can all agree that Obama and Bush do not qualify. I want to say Reagan, but I don't know for sure if I believe it. He deregulated a lot of the economy and stood strong against the USSR, but he also mixed religion with politics and had some major foreign policy gaffes. At any rate, I think he is the closest to "good" that we've had during my lifetime (since 1982). Other than that, I think the most recent one that comes even close to qualifying is Ike, though I don't really know that much about his presidency. Maybe Truman, if for no other reason, because he had the moral courage to end the war, rather than let it drag on.