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Stolen Freedom

With new bill government could label dissidents 'mentally ill' and control them

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
RAY HAYNES

August 21, 2002

State Sen. Haynes represents the 36th Senate District, which includes western Riverside County and northern San Diego County. He is also the Senate Republican whip.

Individual liberty is the fragile thread that holds the fabric of a free society together. All fabric has unsightly loose threads, but if those threads are removed incorrectly, the fabric can unravel and destroy the garment. A commitment to individual liberty will leave a lot of loose threads in a society.

One of the loose threads in a free society is the plight of the mentally ill. They always have trouble "fitting in." Left to their own, some end up homeless, others burden their families. There are some individuals that people think are crazy, but who are really just offbeat. Some mental health professionals have defined people with strong religious convictions as "mentally ill." Hitler justified incarcerating Jews on the grounds that their belief in Judaism was evidence of mental illness.

If the mentally ill become violent, it is easy for government to justify removing them from society. But, what if they don't? Should we be able to lock up someone whose only crime is being mentally ill, if they pose no threat to their own physical safety or the safety of others? In California we have said no.

A.B. 1421, a bill before the Legislature, may change that. Under current law, a person is free to refuse medical help that is offered but not wanted. If a doctor thinks you need an appendectomy, or even an aspirin, you can say no without fear of being arrested. If you happen to suffer from a mental illness or disability, you can refuse treatment for that illness or disability as long as no one else is harmed by your refusal. That is how things work in a free society.

If A.B. 1421 becomes law, you can be incarcerated if you "fail to follow" the treatment plan some psychiatrist has prescribed for your mental illness or disability, even if you are not dangerous. If government thinks someone has a mental illness, the doctor's program is forced on him or her.

That is how dissidents are treated in a totalitarian government. The government declares the dissident insane, and then prescribes a treatment plan that either involves mind-numbing drugs or jail. Castro controls his people with psychiatrists and involuntarily commits those who disagree with him politically on the grounds that they are mentally deficient, and then he treats them with drugs that render them unable to function. His psychiatrists use the power of government to enforce their "treatment plans" for the political dissidents.

The people who support A.B. 1421 will tell you that they only want what's good for the mentally ill. They even have a "good" name for those who will "receive help," calling it "assisted outpatient treatment." It is assistance, however, given at the end of a gun, with threats of incarceration if the person getting the assistance refuses. Under the guise of helping the mentally ill, A.B. 1421 steals not just their freedom, but the freedom of each and every one of us.

Civil liberties are important. A government that doesn't have to prove that you are dangerous or will do something bad before it locks you up is totalitarian.

A.B. 1421 will allow the government to lock you up if the government thinks you are mentally ill and you won't do what some government psychiatrist tells you to do, even when you don't pose a danger to yourself or anyone else.

A government that allows that to occur is not a government that values liberty and is only a step away from totalitarianism. We have every reason to fear a government that would allow such a thing to occur. This is the first step down a very slippery slope.