Replies to post #1564 on The Free Zone Board

[mikkj]

RE: Pat/ Oil companies.

Pat, I have told you this before, so you have no excuse other than trying to peddle right-wing propaganda. WELFARE HAS BEEN REFORMED!!! You get five years in your entire lifetime, and returning to work is a requirement for elegibility. Please stop ragging on that old republican chew-toy. there is NO "lifetime" on welfare lifestyle to remove anymore.

As for we "me first, nobody second" baby-boomers, I guess you're right. We started life out in grade school learning that we might have to withstand nuclear attack (the first generation to do so), and how to prepare for it,and didn't get bitter. Instead, we fought for the right to listen to rock-and-roll, wear jeans to school, grow our hair long, and otherwise have the normal rights of any citizen - in high school. THEN, we fought a war, and fought to end it. We fought for womens rights, civil rights, rights for gays,rights for workers, freedom of speech, civil and political change, rights of consumers, the poor and the handicapped. Yeah, I guess you're right, we ARE a bunch of selfish S.O.B.'s aren't we? Funny thing is, I never noticed ANY right-wingers doing ANY of those things.

Also, you better re-think who it was who put the mentally ill on the streets. I believe Meme had a detailed post on the subject recently. What YOU are talking about are regulations which stopped asylums and other institutions from using 24hr. restraints, shock therapy, massive medication, physical indigities (including rape, beatings, and torture), and from confining a person against their will with NO CAUSE. Even today, if a person IS seriously ill, or may be a threat to themselves, or others, they can, and should, be confined via court order. In the republican "good old days", all you needed to do was have a grudge against someone, and a good lawyer, or be a parent, to have them confined FOR LIFE with NO CAUSE. I can see why you would like that, but we "selfish" baby-boomers won't allow your to get away with thaat kind of crap (still).

Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda. Try sticking with the REAL facts, not the ones you WANT to be real.

[Indy708]

Patlee-Re: Oil Companies.

>"Those with mental disorders should be helped, including forced treatment or hospitalization if necessary. That is how it used to be until the liberals started on the rights of the mentally unhinged. They forced NY and other large cities to turn the patients out and where did they go? To the streets for many of them."<

Is there is no middle ground between the old, "Cukoos Nest", approach and todays, "Just Discharge Them To The Streets", approach? If not then I would suggest that as a society we have failed. We may have evolved into the most powerful military and economic nation that has ever existed, but socialy we don't seem to be evolving much.

>"If the government could cut back to constitutional spending, they should be able to provide with only import tariffs. It will never happen though, as too many people vote for the 'gimme' ticket."<

Import tariffs would only lead to huge trade deficits in an already struggling global economy. The problem with constitutional spending is that it didn't provide for things that hadn't occured yet that enhance the lives of all Americans. I fly on major airlines 2 or 3 times a year and without the FAA I wouldn't get on a plane on a bet. The constitution was written to provide a better way of life in the 18th century when our population and technology did not yet require much governing.
What gimme ticket? Most of the people getting the perks don't even bother to vote, unless you are referring to the aarp.

>"Many baby boomers do not know the meaning of loving or caring for children, as the motto for many of their generation is "me first, nobody second". Government is a poor substitute for a real family."<

I agree. I don't lay it all at the doorstep of the baby boomers but the prevailing attitude in this country seems to be phuckit I got mine, go get yours. If we don't address the needs of the weakest links in the chain none of us will be insulated from thier fear anger and retribution. Jeeze look at Bill Cosbys son, had a flat tire in the wrong place at the wrong time and gets whacked cause he was driving a Mercedes. The guy that commited that crime had no values, no morals and no compulsions about taking a life. I don't know if his motivation was race or money but I can't help but wonder how many more of these little monsters are being created because we as a society are saying, "Oh it,t not my job.". Everyone knows that it's the parents job but in many cases the parents are to busy or just plain don't give a rats ass. Look at these upper middle class college kids. Drunk outta thier gords, rioting over losing a freaking basketball game. The high-school shooting rampages. To me these are all an indications that as a society we failing our youth.

"One other thing; if all taxes were dramatically lowered, more people would be able to afford to live on single incomes so that one parent could be home to care for their children."

I agree whole heartedly. If you can't afford kids and aren't prepared to be there for them then don't have them. One very good reason that I can't support the anti-abortion movement. I'd rather a drug mama who knows she ain't cleaning up, abort than bring a kid into a life of hell and wind up raising another little monster.
I really doubt if taxes on one income can be reduced enough to replace another but more education about parenting and the rteality of what a tough job it is to be a successful parent might help. Hell we got babies raising babies. They are just grinning and saying , "Oh look what I made, buy me a present."

Jeeze, I'm rambling here. I didn't know that "Rambling Syndrome", was was contagious. Oh well I think I know where I caught it. <g> Not a reference to you Pat.

[Meme]

Pat Re: Liberal vs. Conservatives on Mental Health

First, you assert that liberals are turning out the mentally ill from hospitals with this statement:

Those with mental disorders should be helped, including forced treatment or hospitalization if necessary. That is how it used to be until the liberals started on the rights of the mentally unhinged. They forced NY and other large cities to turn the patients out and where did they go? To the streets for many of them.

Then you go one to back it up with this vagary:

What I was talking about is something I read a while back where NY was forced to release mental patients who were confined. I don't know if a court order was necessary at the time to confine them, but a diagnosis by a psychiatrist was most likely needed. Many of those without families or others to care for them ended up on the streets and homeless.

Here's some dead-on info for you:

Privatizing the Poor

When John F. Kennedy proposed the Community Mental Health Act of 1963, the federally funded, community-based mental health centers that the legislation introduced were seen as a humane alternative to the state mental institutions demonized by novelist Ken Kesey in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
For the next two decades, community mental health centers (which at their peak numbered 750, far lower than the 2,000 written into the legislation) received federal funding to provide essential services, largely to the uninsured poor. The centers' clientele grew dramatically when state psychiatric hospitals, backed by state politicians eager to pass the funding burden to the feds, loosed their patients onto the streets. Advances in the efficacy of psychotropic drugs gave further momentum to the movement to treat the mentally ill in their own communities.

But in 1981 Ronald Reagan pushed Con-gress to kill federal funding for the program. Centers found themselves dependent on shrinking state budgets. The resulting cutbacks have impaired their ability to treat low-income patients, swelling the ranks of the untreated, mentally ill. Most of these people have ended up living on the streets or reinstitutionalized behind bars. (A U.S. Conference of Mayors survey found that one-third of the nation's homeless suffer from severe mental illness; a University of Washington study concluded that 10 to 15 percent of inmates in state prisons are seriously mentally ill.)

With the Clinton managed-care health plan on the horizon, the future of community mental health centers is uncertain. Some have begun to market their services to managed-care programs and other private insurers. James Finley, a spokesman for the National Community Mental Healthcare Council, which represents one-third of the country's community mental health centers, predicts that if the Clinton health bill passes, centers that fail to integrate into private-sector provider networks will be "shaken out" of the market.

--Ariel Sabar

http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/MA94/sabar.sidebar.html

You can make up stuff in your head, you can even attribute one little incident in NYC to the liberals if you need to, but nobody can deny the eye-witness testimony of America.

If you were a conscious adult in the early 80's, the swelling ranks of the homeless could hardly pass unnoticed. Nor could one help, but notice their mental problems.

Meme