Your very insistence that you have the only right point of view on this makes me even more against ever allowing anybody who thinks like you the power to involuntarily commit anybody.
The USA, for all it's flaws, is supposed to be based on the idea that the people are not subservient to the Government's goals, but instead, the Government is subservient to the peoples' rights. That they can only be deprived of their rights through due process of law, as passed by elected legislature. Not a "scientific" book written by people who have no accountability to the population as a whole.
I fear you would not understand how important this is unless you yourself were involuntarily committed. It may well already be true that a malicious individual with enough knowledge could look at your current lifestyle and find a justification for committing you and injecting you with things against your will. I'm sure that such a thing could happen under the rules that you seem to advocate. I hope such a thing never happens to you, but I fear that there are many people who would not see the importance until it does.
It's as much a part of the human condition that power corrupts as it is that we are subject to mental illnesses at times. Many say that it will never happen here. I say that (to quote a line from Battlestar Galactica) all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.
> Your very insistence that you have the only right point of view on this makes me even more against ever allowing anybody who thinks like you the power to involuntarily commit anybody.
I don't know what made you think that I have the only right opinion. I'm advocating a view, and actually part of developing a well-rounded view is challenging beliefs you yourself hold--playing devil's advocate.
> That they can only be deprived of their rights through due process of law, as passed by elected legislature. Not a "scientific" book written by people who have no accountability to the population as a whole.
The part of the government that deals with health sets the policy on who should be institutionalised, and they are the ones that give executive power to do so to doctors. Actually, doctors and psychiatrists hold an immense amount of responsibility over the welfare of patients; they may not personally hold accountability, but the hospital or other medical instution does, because of the great potential for lawsuits in the case of mistakes (AFAIK).
> It may well already be true that a malicious individual with enough knowledge could look at your current lifestyle and find a justification for committing you and injecting you with things against your will. I'm sure that such a thing could happen under the rules that you seem to advocate.
This is rather unplausible; there is a mountain of a difference between my behaviour and of an unwashed, malnourished man who fails to communicate even basically with other people, standing for hours at road crossrods like a zombie.
The USA, for all it's flaws, is supposed to be based on the idea that the people are not subservient to the Government's goals, but instead, the Government is subservient to the peoples' rights. That they can only be deprived of their rights through due process of law, as passed by elected legislature. Not a "scientific" book written by people who have no accountability to the population as a whole.
I fear you would not understand how important this is unless you yourself were involuntarily committed. It may well already be true that a malicious individual with enough knowledge could look at your current lifestyle and find a justification for committing you and injecting you with things against your will. I'm sure that such a thing could happen under the rules that you seem to advocate. I hope such a thing never happens to you, but I fear that there are many people who would not see the importance until it does.
It's as much a part of the human condition that power corrupts as it is that we are subject to mental illnesses at times. Many say that it will never happen here. I say that (to quote a line from Battlestar Galactica) all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.