More needs to be done to help mentally disturbed people

[cbc5g]

Can I be the only one here that thinks this isn't an issue of left vs right, but an issue of mental health and mental illness?

Do we have to politicize everything and try to score points in a tragedy?

To respond to these claims..I agree that Palin and others should be condemned for their language, and the crazies on the right that claim we need to bring 2nd amendment solutions should also be condemned or even prosecuted if they go too far.. but then I see Obama saying if they bring knives to the fight we bring guns. Or that hispanics need to punish their enemies. I am a skeptic and while I know most of the hate comes from the right, we must understand that our side is to blame for some as well. I will not let my political beliefs cloud my judgment.

People are saying that rhetoric needs to be toned down. Rhetoric inciting violence does, but I am not going to tone it down if a President tries to get us to war again. I am going to the streets and protesting and letting my voice be heard.



But this incident wasn't political. It was medical. And the folks that knew the killer and did nothing are partly to blame. How could they kick him out without alerting people that he needs help? He appears to be a victim of rejection and mental illness. He's mentally ill..The army rejected him, friends reject him, girls reject him, family rejects him, society rejects him, no one cares for him, no one gives him attention..now he has the attention he wanted after a buildup of pain inside. Everyone hates him, just like he wanted.

Even if I am totally wrong in my analysis here, it's clear he needed mental help and the system failed him and ultimately led to a tragedy. What are we to do with the next person with mental problems, ignore them too? Hope for the best?

I read the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf and I think they were good in terms of understanding history. I smoked pot with friends and had many discussions on things like Bush wanting to bring terror and authoritarianism on us and 9/11 was brought to us by Bush/Cheney/globalists as a reichstag fire like event. I remember at Iraq war protests many people would discuss these things. Thats what many young people do and it doesn't make them crazy or right wing or left wing radicals. It doesn't make us radical killers. It's free thought and free exchange of ideas.

This young guy was mentally disturbed. He needed help. People rejected him, ignored him. No one alerted anyone, and if they did, no one did anything about it. Arizona has gun laws where you can buy guns even if you have mental problems. But where was family, where were doctors? Even if there was a law against buying guns if you have a mental condition, he still would have been able to get one if he was undiagnosed. Even if he was diagnosed, he probably would have found guns somewhere to do what he wanted.

What I really would like to know is what meds he was on. A common theme among killers besides underlying psychiatric disorders, is withdrawal from meds to help those disorders. If you cold turkey it can literally make you go nuts especially if you have a serious condition for which the drugs help.


Mental disorders aren't a joke and this certainly is not a right or left wing assassination, it's a tragedy of our health care system and our society that basically rejected and ignored the guy and hoped for the best.

[GSLevel9]

1. post of the day, thank you. I can't disagree with a thing. t

[JoePhilly]

2. If you help the mentally ill, you can't get them to kill for you.

Better to make sure they get no treatment, and then ensure they can get weapons.

Then scare the shit out of them, and make them as angry as you can ... so that they might attack you political opposition.

This is how right wing political assassination is now done.

[slackmaster]

3. Wow, a rational, logical, dispassionate post on DU

I am truly shocked.

[dkf]

4. It sounds like Arizona had the tools in place had someone acted too.

"Unlike other states, which require that someone be an imminent danger to themselves or others before seeking to have them involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation and treatment, in Arizona, one need only be "persistently or acutely" ill."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/jared-loughners-behavior-never.html

[valerief]

5. Number 1 -- The media should stop inciting them!!!!!

Number 2 - well, that costs money and the RW wants only the elite to have the money.

[Statistical]

6. Thanks. I would rec this twice if I could. n/t

[End Of The Road]

7. Show me the money.

Pres Carter put together a pretty good community-based mental health care system which was dismantled by Reagan. Given the budget crunch, I doubt that state or federal governments will be putting any plans on the table to increase spending for mental health.

[cutlassmama]

8. He was given medication, but chose not to take it. He had help, but apparently

no follow up on it.

[DeadEyeDyck]

9. Best and most mature post on the topic.

[Cleita]

10. Remember when Tipper Gore said that

a national health care plan should include mental health and she was laughed at?

[El Supremo]

11. What makes you think that a country...

which cares little about the hungry and homeless, which allows the rich to take advantage of the poor and which wages unjust war against innocents would protect society from any mentally ill people?