[PEN-L:11967] Re: Big mouth

["Max B. Sawicky" <maxsaw@xxxxxxxxx>]

> >I know people like this myself and it's not an easy thing for
> >anybody to address.  The afflicted have sufficient faculties to
> >refuse care that is good for them and society and the legal rights
> >to enforce such a refusal.  Often the only thing they will let you
> >do is give them money to piss away.
>
> This is a bunch of reactionary crap.

My brother was diagnosed chronic schizo when
he was 20.  Now he's 45.  He's been living with
his mother, unable to hold a job or take elementary
care of himself.  In front of a judge, he's as lucid
as Socrates.  Other times he talks incessantly about
the Mafia, the FBI, and the CIA conspiring against
him.   He writes poetry.  He can't be committed. He would only
consent to live in a country club-type facility that indulged his
every want, which my family can't come close to affording.  So he's
basically ruined my mother's life.  I wouldn't tolerate his behavior
and let him ruin mine, in which case he would probably end
up on the street.

The only fix for this is coercive confinement, which
we wish would be generously funded by society, but
we know probably would not be.  In any case, it's
irrelevant because such confinement is illegal.

I know what I'm talking about, here if nowhere
else.

Cheers,

MBS



===================================================
Max B. Sawicky            Economic Policy Institute
maxsaw@xxxxxxxxx          1660 L Street, NW
202-775-8810 (voice)      Ste. 1200
202-775-0819 (fax)        Washington, DC  20036
http://epn.org/sawicky

Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views
of anyone associated with the Economic Policy
Institute other than this writer.
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