http://www.newswithviews.com/Levant/nancy3.htm This column, though shrill (but in fairness, she seems equally shrill to both parties), mentions something I haven't seen discussed here before. It mentions Bush's "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health." This is the most relevant part of the column: Has this been discussed before? Has anyone heard mention of this NFCOMH? Is the columnist just being paranoid? Discussion welcomed. Leave your partisanship at the door.
She looks a little goofy and her commentary seemed over the top. All of which I stated in the opening post. Aren't you one of the ones always railing on people for attacking the person and not the point? Bottom line was simply that I was curious as to whether or not anyone had heard anything about this national mental health initiative and if they think it has the potential to reach to rather frightening worst case scenario suggested by the admittedly goofy looking columnist.
Ok, initially I wrote off her writings as delusional. However, I did a little more research on the subject and some of the proposals I read from the President's National Commission on Mental Health is disturbing to say the least. The woman may have gone overboard in her column, but the last thing I'd support is any kind of compulsory mental health screening of children (or adults, for that matter). I will have to keep an eye on this topic in the news.
Well, apparently the commission was created about 3 years ago, and the initiative is about a year old: http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/ Needless to say, Ron Paul is not a fan: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul203.html I'm surprised we hadn't heard about this at some point. Actually, I guess I'm not surprised. I think it's important that mental health be made a focus, for a couple of reasons. For starters, it's necessary to destigmatize mental illness, and a government initivative to do so would be a step in the right direction. Also, since mental health issues are generally harder to diagnose, those who lack basic health care are at greater risk of leaving problems untreated. That being said, this is much. Mandatory screening and treatment is clearly overstepping the government's boundaries.
The report by the Commission to this Executive...like anything today, it requires some reading to ferret out the claims on your own, with no chance of spin (of the report, not within it by those "reporting"), b/c this IS the statement of the commission to the POTUS.