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Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

madinamerica.com

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Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#61

Post by jbooth »

chris_mahan wrote: post #37
jbooth wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it easy on the rhetoric. No, those founding fathers were not anti-authorianists to the degree that people would call a pathology. The continental congress did not descend into a bunch of bickering every time someone asked someone else to do something. They were mostly, from all reports, pretty well-adjusted and got along with each other civilly even with major disagreements on how to do things.

Except for the shooting and killing of the King's Soldiers at Bunker Hill outside Boston.

Yes, there was in fact a war during the revolutionary war, but very few if any of the founding fathers were at Bunker Hill, and you'd be hard-pressed to prove the overwhelming majority of soldiers were doing it out of pathological anti-authority problems. They had plenty of non-pathological, reasonable complaints.

Sometimes things happen within the normal human spectrum. You're conflating behavior with a category in the DSM with political action by generally sane individuals.

As far as what little relation this has to the gun debate: Background checks for mental illness are probably a reasonable idea, and I'm pro gun rights.

I was against the recent Toomey-Manchin legislation until I heard that:

- It makes creating a federal database of gun owners explicitly illegal

- It makes transporting unloaded guns across state lines explicitly legal (this is apparently currently illegal a lot of the time)

- It's only applying the same standards for licensed gun dealers to gun shows and internet sales, while explicitly making internet sales legal (gray area before)

It's actually a totally reasonable bill that does a lot of what gun rights people have been asking for. But what's the upside for the NRA in a reasonable bill, versus vilifying it and raising a bunch of money to STOP THE GUN GRABBING BILL? That is why we can't have nice things.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#62

Post by ameister14 »

AutoCorrect wrote: post #46
bjhoops1 wrote: post #18

I have a 13-year-old brother with ODD. And let me tell you, there is more to it than a healthy does of anti-authoritarianism. We adopted my brother when he was 15 months old, and in his first year of life we suspect he was frequently neglected, leading to attachment issues. Basically, when an infant's needs are not met, they get distressed, and the more often this occurs, the more those neurological pathways become i…

and it requires the above traits in people close to the person, not Ritalin or other mood altering drugs, to truly solve the problem, and not just mask it.

You're applying an acute care model to a chronic problem; it's not necessarily 'fixable.'

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#63

Post by dkuntz2 »

chris_mahan wrote: post #34
6cxs2hd6 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we can't have nice firearms. Seriously: I fully support background checks -- extending what we already have, to cover all sales. I also think that if motor vehicles require registration, insurance, and license to operate, then firearms sure as heck should, too. Even so, if I'm being intellectually honest, I also have a twinge of doubt when it comes to "mental health" grounds, and I have some concern about…

I agree with you. I see the main problem as this: Many people want to keep firearms to keep the power of the government in check, and the government wants to write the rules on who can keep arms. This causes a friction. Either the people give up the right to bear arms and trust the government fully, or the government should not be allowed to make rules on who can keep arms. Anything short of that will continue to cau…

I would say that the framers did envision a government that people didn't fully trust.

Most of them came with a healthy distrust of government, and wrote in all of the checks and balances because they didn't trust governments, and the checks helped allay their concerns.

I agree on the revocation of constitutional rights by, they probably didn't want a system which would let a single diagnosis revoke a right. But, based on their goals in designing our current government, multiple, corroborating reports would probably be accepted by them.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#64

Post by jbooth »

ctdonath wrote: post #33
jbooth wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it easy on the rhetoric. No, those founding fathers were not anti-authorianists to the degree that people would call a pathology. The continental congress did not descend into a bunch of bickering every time someone asked someone else to do something. They were mostly, from all reports, pretty well-adjusted and got along with each other civilly even with major disagreements on how to do things.

But their political opponents would not hesitate to have them declared pathological, and so proceed to establish "legal" grounds to disarm & incarcerate (ahem, involuntary commitment to treatment). Many authoritarian governments have done so to great effect and great harm; ours is heading that way.

Sort of a non-sequitur here: Someone once called the FOUNDING FATHERS (freedom!) crazy, therefore we shouldn't restrict documented crazy people from buying guns?

There is probably a lesson in that disorders that make you inconvenient for the system are more likely to be recognized/categories than those that make you a sheep. Fine. I don't think you can generalize from that to "documented mentally ill should be able to buy guns because what if it's actually a conspiracy vs them and not just voices in their head? then they can use their gun to stop the conspiracy.". That seems like pretty awesomely bad policy to me.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#65

Post by bjhoops1 »

betterunix wrote: post #39
nostrademons wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Low self-esteem", sometimes colloquially called "people pleasing" or "being a doormat". A good therapist will recognize this and encourage the child to develop more of their own interests and assert themselves more.

The problem is that a child will not be brought to a therapist for following the rules; only a child who violates rules too frequently will ever see the inside of a psychiatrist's office. A child who always does what they are told will be rewarded , and will likely be rewarded further if their reaction to their rewards is, "What are my next set of instructions?"

This reminds me of a poem my favorite Math professor used to share, about a little boy who was always instructed exactly how to draw a picture of a flower: http://home.bresnan.net/~cabreras/theboy.htm

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#66

Post by ctdonath »

alan_cx wrote: post #60
ctdonath wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it absolutely is a related issue these days. New York and California are, as a result of very recent legislation, actively seeking out and disarming those labeled "mentally ill". The USA's federal leadership is pressing hard to do the same. Genuine at-risk cases aside, we're facing a situation where sensible liberty-defending anti-authoritarian citizens may very well be involuntarily labeled as ODD and disarm…

"New York and California are, as a result of very recent legislation, actively seeking out and disarming those labeled "mentally ill". " What? On top of everything else the mentally ill get to own guns? That is honestly shocking to me.

"Mentally ill" is a very broad issue, both in definition and temporal application. Someone may be fine when licensed, then acquire the label later - should police go so far as an armed raid on the home to locate & confiscate any guns? What (as the lead article notes) constitutes serious enough "illness" to warrant active identification and confiscation? The definition of "mentally ill" is being expanded, covering what prior was considered normal; is it acceptable for the government to reverse licensing when the licensee has not changed in any objective way? Many "mental illnesses" are temporary, resulting from either transient biological phenomena or one-time social stress; the issue having passed and the patient returned to normal, the label remains - when does a "mental illness" label get eradicated? If treatment restores someone to normalcy with ongoing medical maintenance ("fine so long as he's on his pills"), is the patient indefinitely denied what is otherwise a right of "normal" people?

Then there's association therewith. Is a mentally stable person prohibited weapons just because s/he lives with someone labeled "mentally ill", despite suitable securing of the arms?

Finally, who gets to define "mentally ill"? Per the lead article, just being "anti-authoritarian" (in, say, a George Washington sense) could get one involuntarily labeled as such. Dictatorships are fond of so labeling, and ultimately eliminating, political opposition by application of the label.

We can all agree that the just-plain-nuts should be disallowed guns, and all firearms licensing processes include some level of certification of sanity. Problem is, the anti-gun movement is leveraging that restriction to expand prohibition in ways which are honestly shocking to me.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#67

Post by dkuntz2 »

chris_mahan wrote: post #15
bjhoops1 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me you don't actually want these folks armed.

Wait, weren't the people who fought to make America independent upset with the King's Authority? Would you not say, today, that they were anti-authorianists? Would you not say that an oppressive government would use such a "medical condition" to confiscate guns from people who disagreed with it? Think hard about this, and ask yourself what you would have done in 1774: sided with the Revolutionaries, or sided with the…

That's a poor question.

The Revolutionaries were really just opportunists. They could have received the representation they wanted in parliament, however they saw the chance to start their own government, a new one, built by them, however they wanted. I'm not saying it was a bad thing that they decided to focus their efforts on starting a new government instead of working with their current one, but they didn't have to.

The Declaration of Independence was written to discredit parliament and the king (who, at this time, didn't have power anymore, it was already with the House of Commons), and to drum up support with other powers who didn't really like England (specifically France). They could have worked out a deal with the House of Commons giving them a representative spot, but their declaration explicitly decided against it.

Take a history class. You might get some context to the events you cite.

Re: Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill (2012)

#70

Post by madaxe »

jmillikin wrote: post #57
jessriedel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, sure. But would be ever prescribe prescription drugs for this? Everything you're describing is characterized as a personality trait , whereas the OP (who I hardly fully agree with) is claiming that anti-authoritarian sentiments are labeled a disease . Obviously, this makes a big difference in how these phenomena are treated.

> Sure, sure. But would be ever prescribe prescription > drugs for this? If there was a drug shown to improve self-esteem in children, it would likely become one of the most profitable drugs of all time. > Everything you're describing is characterized as a > personality trait, whereas the OP (who I hardly fully > agree with) is claiming that anti-authoritarian > sentiments are labeled a disease. ADHD and ODD aren't d…

> If there was a drug shown to improve self-esteem in children, it would likely become one of the most profitable drugs of all time.

It's called alcohol. It's wildly profitable.

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