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Are People Being Thrown In Psychiatric Wards For Their Political Views?
Many psychologists and psychiatrists are good people, who are only trying to help their patients.
But the Nazi government substantially supported psychologists … many of whom, in turn, espoused extermination of the people they considered to be “racially and cognitively compromised”.
Soviet psychiatrists famously aided Stalin in applying fake insanity diagnoses to political dissenters. The official explanation was that no sane person would declaim the Soviet government and Communism.
American psychologists created the American program of torture which was specially-crafted to produce false confessions to justify U.S. military policy. And see this.
And authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, … and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)
As prominent forensic psychiatrist James Knoll - psychiatry professor at SUNY-Syracuse and director of a forensic fellowship program - writes in the Psychiatric Times:
When psychiatric science becomes co-opted by a political agenda, an unhealthy alliance may be created. It is science that will always be the host organism, to be taken over by political viruses…. [P]sychiatry may come to resemble a new organism entirely -- one that serves the ends of the criminal justice system.
Even psychologists with good intentions can erroneously label people delusional simply because they themselves make bad assumptions.
There is even a label for this – the “Martha Mitchell Effect” – defined as:
The process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly.
The authors of a paper on this phenomenon (Bell, V., Halligan, P.W., Ellis, H.D. (2003) Beliefs About Delusions. The Psychologist, 6 (8), 418-422) conclude:
Sometimes, improbable reports are erroneously assumed to be symptoms of mental illness [due to a] failure or inability to verify whether the events have actually taken place, no matter how improbable intuitively they might appear to the busy clinician.
In other words, psychologists who haven’t taken the time to examine for themselves the claims of their patients will tend to label as delusional anything which they “intuitively” feel is improbable. As such, psychologists and psychiatrists are just as prone to acting out their irrational prejudices as anyone else … unless they take the time to investigate and educate themselves.
Governments Indefinitely Detaining Citizens In Psychiatric Wards Without Due Process of Law
As such, detention in psych wards on mere “suspicion” of posing a danger – without due process of law – is troubling.
For example, former marine Brandon Raub was just carted off and locked in a psychiatric ward for his allegedly “anti-government” Facebook posts.
AP reports today:
Police – acting under a state law that allows emergency, temporary psychiatric commitments upon the recommendation of a mental health professional – took Raub to the John Randolph Medical Center in Hopewell. He was not charged with any crime.
***
Col. Thierry Dupuis, the county police chief, said Raub was taken into custody upon the recommendation of mental health crisis intervention workers. He said the action was taken under the state’s emergency custody statute, which allows a magistrate to order the civil detention and psychiatric evaluation of a person who is considered potentially dangerous.
New York Police officer Adrian Schoolcraft was involuntarily hospitalizated in a psychiatric ward after he recorded videotapes of his fellow police officers engaging in corruption.
Claire Swinney of New Zealand was also held in a psychiatric ward and called “delusional” for criticizing the government. Susan Lindauer was held under the Patriot Act for a year at Carswell Air Force Base - where psychiatric drugs were pushed on her - after she alleged government corruption.
The Daily Mail notes:
The [British] Government has established a shadowy new national anti-terrorist unit to protect VIPs, with the power to detain suspects indefinitely using mental health laws.
***
The team’s psychiatrists and psychologists then have the power to order treatment – including forcibly detaining suspects in secure psychiatric units.
Using these powers, the unit can legally detain people for an indefinite period without trial, criminal charges or even evidence of a crime being committed and with very limited rights of appeal.
Until now it has been the exclusive decision of doctors and mental health professionals to determine if someone should be forcibly detained.
But the new unit uses the police to identify suspects – increasing fears the line is being blurred between criminal investigation and doctors’ clinical decisions.
***
Scotland Yard, which runs the shadowy unit, refuses to discuss how many suspects have been forcibly hospitalised by the team because of “patient confidentiality”.
***
The purpose of the centre is “to evaluate and manage the risk posed to prominent people by…those who engage in inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours in the context of abnormally intense preoccupations, many [Many? That means that some are not] of which arise from psychotic illness.”
Who gets to decide what “inappropriate” or “threatening” means? What if a whistleblower has information that a member of parliament has engaged in bribes? Would trying to reveal such information constitute “inappropriate or threatening communications or behaviours” in the context of “abnormally intense preoccupations” with that MP’s illegal actions?
Indeed, a study published in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry found a high rate of false positives in the British identification of dangerous persons.
The Mail continues:
So-called ‘sectioning’ allows a patient to be held for up to six months before a further psychological assessment. Patients are then reviewed every year to determine if they can be released.
***
Human rights activists fear the team, whose existence has never been publicised, may be being used as a way to detain suspected terrorists without having to put evidence before the courts.
***
Last night human rights group Liberty said the secret unit represented a new threat to civil liberties.
Policy director Gareth Crossman said: “There is a grave danger of this being used to deal with people where there is insufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution.
“This blurs the line between medical decisions and police actions. If you are going to allow doctors to take people’s liberty away, they have to be independent. That credibility is undermined when the doctors are part of the same team as the police.
“This raises serious concerns. First that you have a unit that allows police investigation to lead directly to people being sectioned without any kind of criminal proceedings.
“Secondly, it is being done under the umbrella of anti-terrorism at a time when the Government is looking at ways to detain terrorists without putting them on trial.”
***
The team examined thousands of cases and liaised with the FBI, the US Secret Service, the Capitol Hill Police, which protects Congressmen and Senators, and the Swedish and Norwegian secret services.
***
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: “The Government is trying to bring in a wider definition of mental disorder and is resisting exclusions which ensure that people cannot be treated as mentally disordered on the grounds of their cultural, political or religious beliefs.
“When you hear they are also setting up something like this police unit, it raises questions about quite what their intentions are.
“The use of mental health powers of detention should be confined to the purposes of treatment. But the Government wants to be able to detain someone who is mentally disordered even when the treatment would have no benefit.
“Combined with the idea that someone could be classed as mentally ill on the grounds of their religious beliefs, it is a very worrying scenario.”
Indeed, the whole “indefinite detention” process (which Americans living on American soil are subject to) can be based on circular reasoning:
The government’s indefinite detention policy – stripped of it’s spin – is literally insane, and based on circular reasoning. Stripped of p.r., this is the actual policy:
- If you are an enemy combatant or a threat to national security, we will detain you indefinitely until the war is over
- It is a perpetual war, which will never be over
- Neither you or your lawyers have a right to see the evidence against you, nor to face your accusers
- But trust us, we know you are an enemy combatant and a threat to national security
- We may torture you (and try to cover up the fact that you were tortured), because you are an enemy combatant, and so basic rights of a prisoner guaranteed by the Geneva Convention don’t apply to you
- Since you admitted that you’re a bad guy (while trying to tell us whatever you think we want to hear to make the torture stop), it proves that we should hold you in indefinite detention
See how that works?
This is an analogy. We are not accusing psych wards of using torture. However, they do often use powerful psychiatric drugs on patients … which can elicit false confessions.
Are we going to slide into Soviet levels of psychiatric detention of political dissidents? Unless the spread of psychiatric detention without due process of law is checked, the mere belief that the government is interfering with your liberty may become grounds for locking you away.
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does that go for protectionist republicans whom believe void of contestation that import tariff be good funding mechanism? or the strength of a nation is it's manufacturing base? or life, liberty, property, health care, education and living wages are rights? well sir lock me in my single wide and color i socialist
Any American that protects local jobs and manufacturing in this economy, and wants to increase said efforts against import 'tariff's is worthy of admiration. How does protectionism have anything to do with life, liberty, property, health care, education, and living wages? You are not completely evolved. When educated people consider that people are the greatest asset on the planet, when you quit trying to take from those that earned; and contrast those that inherited.. if they quit behaving like they earned it; then perhaps we can start a dialog. The point is that each individual makes an effort, and in turn those individuals form a community. That community is geographically and temporally distinct, and is better equipped to govern themselves. That is the point of the US, not a hardline ruler, but a consensus of local rule. The federal government has forgotten that, or ignored it. America was never meant to be an empire. We need to quit acting as such. We don't need to act in Libya, Syria, Iran, Ecuador.....the list goes on. We worry more about how a presidential candidate pays taxes than how our president takes our freedoms away. How is 'our' way of life so great? Because in the end those who are left will earn it. Take your socialist diatribe elsewhere.
Everyone who contributed to that article, commments on it, or agrees with it should be detained as they are potential terrorists.
Well, everyone except me, as I believe the government never lies & exists to protect us from those evil towel heads overseas who need to be liberated from all that pesky oil that's burdening them.
End of sarcasm.
Let me guess, all your guns and gold were either stolen or fell off a boat and sunk to the bottom of the ocean while whale watching.
I should probably self-commit.
Most on Zero Hedge are guilty of being IN-SANITY.
The rest of the world is crazy or distracted.
Oh, and George - you are getting a nice padded cell next to me.....
I am not on-board with the 'held without cause / violation of rights' train of thought, YET.
No one has the details of exactly what went down when he was picked up. What I CAN tell you is that it was not a bunch of storm troopers busting down his door.
It is most likely that he was paid a visit by several people from different agencies and asked about the posts (or some other yet to be revealed discovery, erratic or worrying behavior, etc.).
If the Raub was an experienced combat engineer (meaning he worked with munitions, homemade bombs, IEDs, etc.. for many years in the service), then this is even more reason for the authorities to be interested in having a chat with him given the breadth and depth of knowledge he possesses.
When considering his online rants and threats, it is highly likely that Raub spouted off with BIG attitude with the Feds or said something other than the most defusing, calming, self-humbling "Yea, I have been pissed and I am just venting online" type of explanation. In such a situation, I see the LEOs from the various local and federal agencies not wanting to take a chance, leave him alone (FREEDOM OF SPEECH!) and have him pull off some spectacularly tragic attack.
Within the last few months there have been several mass causality incidents (Colorado, Wisconsin, any weekend in Chicago) that have many wringing their hands over why glaring signs of problems/danger were not reported. "Why was nothing done?" is the typical cry.
Remember how the college lab rat had his apartment rigged? This guy could have made that look like child's play given his skill set.
Nahhh. At this point, I am siding with the law. Based on the facts being reported, but without the fog of patriotism and liberty clouding the issue, it would seem at this point they moved correctly.
While I agree with many of Raub's gripes, he was a fool for opening his fat mouth and making threats in a public forum.
This will always get a response.
He wanted attention when he made those statements. Well, he got it.
Now they want a closer look. You can bet your ass they have already tossed his apt/home and are chatting up his pals.
Probably a whole bunch of people around him sayin, "Dude, will you please STFU !!!"
I have a lot of respect for those serving this nation in the armed services and prefer to give them the benefit of a doubt because the vast majority are professionals and conduct themselves as such. They really are extraordinary considering their average age and what they are able to accomplish.
But when you have someone with his skill set, likely having experienced sustained stress in the various theaters, back home, pissed livid and making threats, you have to respond.
For the Man, this is one of those damned if you do, (probably) damned if you don't situations.
"While I agree with many of Raub's gripes, he was a fool for opening his fat mouth and making threats in a public forum."
When or how should a United States Citizen, or Person, state their case? You Sir, are a lost cause. You wrote quite a bit about someone else's comments and opinions on a forum that the judicial branch has been completely bought off on. When was it that an opinion was considered treason? The fact the the information we are posting is collected should be interesting to both tyrants and patriots. The side that wins writes history.
As the saying go's"Silence is golden".
To those who hwave the gold.
Movie quote "The one with the rifle shoots, when he is killed, you pick up the rifle and shoot!"
300,000,000 times over.
I'll bite.
"I see the LEOs from the various local and federal agencies not wanting to take a chance, leave him alone (FREEDOM OF SPEECH!) and have him pull off some spectacularly tragic attack.
Within the last few months there have been several mass causality incidents (Colorado, Wisconsin, any weekend in Chicago) that have many wringing their hands over why glaring signs of problems/danger were not reported. "Why was nothing done?" is the typical cry.
Remember how the college lab rat had his apartment rigged? This guy could have made that look like child's play given his skill set."
But men of courage must continue to stand up and insist that whatever the mayhem an individual, or a group may incite, that said mayhem is preferable to giving the State power to arbitrarilly impose its subjective prerogatives upon the citizenry. The effect of individuals, or small groups, is in any case finite compared to the unrestrained, esseitially infinite, capability of the State to abuse State powers.
In such a situation, I see the LEOs from the various local and federal agencies not wanting to take a chance, leave him alone (FREEDOM OF SPEECH!) and have him pull off some spectacularly tragic attack.
Who made U the head of the pre-crime unit? Go read some more Karl Marx comrade.
Fuck You Blue Horseshit.
Never implied I was the head of anything in my comments.
You obviously are commenting on something you know very little about.
Dig up some of the threats and statements he was making online.
Then comment intelligently.
Otherwise you just look like a whiner.
I believe this is the point where the principle of free speech meets the reality of the day to day world.
We deserve the rulers we allow to rule us.
Minus one because your original argument was worth reading, your reply was ad-hominem worthless...great trolling tool though. I have to admit that your tracking schemes are improving. Sign me up! Wait, I'm already on the list.
"Dig up some of the threats and statements he was making online.
Then comment intelligently."
I'll take you up on that. After reading many of his posts, the most provocative thing I read that he posted was "Sharpen my axe, I"m here to sever heads." Those are song lyrics from a band called Swollen Member (Jeez, the stuff kids listen to today). Everything else I read was as benign as anything you'll read here on ZH.
I used to be involved in mental health committment hearings and I can tell you that there is no way in hell that this man could have been locked up in a psych ward through a legitimate mental health committment hearing.
This entire episode is a message to people that are fed up with government corruption. It's the government's way of letting them know that they may be next.
Something I found odd... I am a former paramedic. I was involved in a few involuntary 72 hour holds where we transported a person from their hime to the hospital. Why were there no EMS involved? This whole situation is just odd.
Having worked for a couple years in a psych ER, it is not unusual for a person to be brought in by the police without EMS involvement when he comes to their attention first and has no apparent medical issues.
Nice try Bob. They went to the house siting Virginia code that only talks about medical issues.
key word being "code". too bad he didn't have a fee schedule filed with VA -- that would have been interesting.
Bingo!!
My point exactly.
I mean anybody ... anybody, once they're dragged out of their house ... shirtless, wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and thrown into the back of the cruizer is going to look a little wound up when medically evaluated immeadiately afterwards.
Obvious really.
I completely agree.
I believe the Virginia code he was renditioned under says he can be held for his own good, etc., after some mental health functionary makes an evaluation. Yet he was grabbed without any evaluation. No mental health type went to his door.
I see lawsuits for the clear violation of this Marine's rights. I hope the family wins big.
BI, if they are operating under the color of the law, then his "rights" are immaterial, as they are now considered "privileges" granted by the State. let's hope that the Rutherford Institute who's agreed to represent him is willing to go to bat for him vs. being a tool (willing or not) of the bar.
I don't know the Virginia code, but expect it's pretty much the same as Michigan's, which I know too well. A petition for the necessary evaluation can be completed by anybody with first hand knowledge, including family or police, and this empowers authorities to forcibly take him to a facility where he will be evaluated by a medical doctor/psychiatrist for involuntary commitment on the sole grounds of present danger to self or others.
Obviously this assessment of danger is pretty much left to the doctor's judgment. Many doctors who do "crisis work" regularly are narcissistic assholes by nature who have little if any respect for anybody but themselves and are motivated primarily by getting paid well while not getting sued. In this situation, the threat of getting sued for unnecessarily locking somebody up for a 72 hour observation is far less (particularly given the drama of how the patient drew the attention prior to his arrival) than the risk/certainty of getting sued if he kills himself, somebody else or both.
Maybe he will get sued. It doesn't happen enough, imo.
OTOH, maybe the patient made statements that cooked his own goose. Those would be unlikely to be admitted by either him or those promoting his case now that it's becoming a cause celebre.
Bob - I'm no lawyer ... thank Creation, but it looks like they got the cart before the horse here. None of the Feds claimed he was seized under their authority when asked in accounts I read. So the local cops went into his home and seized him. According to the state law that I read, he can be seized based on a medical evaluation. How was this evaluation achieved prior to him being seized?
I think this is an important point.
Not so very different from criminal arrest, if you think about it. The cops arrest you based upon a reasonable suspicion that the DA or Court has to confirm sufficient to extend your incarceration beyond a few days. But you're seized and held in the meantime.
Here the reasonable suspicion, based upon somebody/anybody's report, is that a guy's a danger to self or others due to mental illness, so he's seized and taken to the psychiatrist. A law which left the burden of going for the evaluation on the crazy person wouldn't make sense, either, given the suspicion that he lacks the capacity to make sane decisions. Doctors most definitely are not making house calls in crisis mental health cases, (any more than they do in medical cases, regardless of real need) but say they did--if the law didn't allow for essentially running over a person's normal rights, how would they handle a potentially mentally ill and dangerous guy who refused to talk with them when they knocked on his door? Most would refuse to talk or otherwise cooperate . . . which is why the system takes over.
The state has the burden of protecting you even from yourself once they have reason to believe you are mentally ill and dangerous. Your rights to make a decision about your own mental health or treatment largely evaporate.
I would guess that in the present case, a lot of people actually liked this guy. Think about it--DHS don't need jack shit in the way of evidence to completely disappear you. No court hearings, no explanations.
That doesn't make any of this necessarily right. Just sayin' how it works. Yes, there is obvious potential for abuse. But that's everywhere in the legal system. In theory, the operative principle is balancing various competing interests.
In Michigan, it takes a "Petition" (completed by anybody with direct knowledge of the grounds for suspicion of mental illness and danger) to seize you and a "Certification" (completed by a medical doctor) to lock you up for 72 hours. The system can't be any different in VA or it wouldn't work, imo. Anybody who wants to know should find it easy enough to find out, however. Just call a crisis center or ER.
Bob - Not so very different from criminal arrest,
It is very different from a criminal arrest. To arrest him, he must be charged with a crime and read his Miranda rights re. self-incrimination. Pay attention Bob. Neither of these things happened. To someone, unlike you, interested in preserving what's left of our Constitutionally guarenteed rights, that's an abnormality.
Now, some annonymous medical professional is your judge jury? You are OK with that? You do know, that in the former Soviet Union, the Physciatric profession was co-opted to suppress the people?
Don't appologize so hard you're gonna strain yourself.
Look, there's nothing to like about it. Just how it is, sorry to strain the train with facts. Presumably (though it had been erased) his facebook posts justified--to their twisted minds--a visit from the FBI. Nobody knows--reliably--what happened after that, but from the outside it's unremarkable.
The inside may be a different matter. Why not get to the bottom of it?
But pay attention: If it looks like you're mentally ill and dangerous, that's equivalent to a crime wrt your right to not be "arrested." It's been going on for 40 years and has happened to millions of people. For better and for worse, it's legal.
key bounce
Sorry Bob - For better and for worse, it's legal.
You're full of shit. Brandon Raub was illegally detained and like I said, I hope he and his family get the large settlement they deserve from those responsible for this violation of his legal, Constitutionally enshrined rights.
VICTORY: Circuit Court Orders Brandon Raub Released, Dismisses Case Against Marine Arrested, Detained in Veterans Admin. Psych Ward over Political Views, Song Lyrics Posted on Facebook
"In coming to Raub’s defense, attorneys for The Rutherford Institute challenged the actions of Chesterfield County, Va. as procedurally improper, legally unjustified, and in violation of Raub’s First Amendment rights. ... However, Judge Allan Sharrett declared the government’s case to be lacking in factual allegations and ordered Raub immediately released."
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/vic...
No, fuck you. You are apologizing for the trashing of free speech. This guy did NOTHING, and hurt NO ONE.
He knew how to blow things up, he quoted ugly lyrics, vented too loudly. BUT HE DID NOTHING.
Either we have the guts to stand for free speech, or we make excuses for vile overlords.
Such abuse of the word fuck, But what is fuck? George Carlin explains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZkb4TPI-Lo
vented too loudly
Do you mind explaining this? Example? WTF?
Are you passive aggressive?
You seriously want to parse that? Have fun... alone.
I have no desire to read Divinewind's detailed explanation either. He spoke clearly I already understand enough to disagree with windy.
Well, the point is you are wrong chimp. He did not "vent too loudly". Go back and read the Bill of Rights again. Maybe you operate under a different system?
Dear god, you really couldnt' understand that I was re-stating the other guy's accusations?
Seriously, looking for things to criticize is a waste of your time.
“This system we created works. Really works . . . Force is not the way because liberty is a very powerful concept . . . We can govern ourselves. We do not need to be governed by men who want to install a one world banking system. These men have machine hearts . . . We gave them the keys to our country. We were not vigilant with our republic. There is hope. BUT WE MUST TAKE OUR REPUBLIC BACK.”
Brandon Raub, founder of the Richmond Liberty Movement
Color me nuts but that sounds like the kind of loony stuff i {and was taught that our founding fathers} firmly believe in.
when the government just straight up black bags your ass NDAA style its a pretty good sign youve jumped the liberty shark
It's the Nairobi Trio for you from now on, Chuckles. Might as well take up smoking.
People are also being thown into prisons because of their political views in that they think they are escaping the hopelessness of the US economy by joining the military all the while thinking they are doing a noble and courageous service. When they get out, if they get out, then they realize that they were conned into being mercinaries, paid murderers for bankers interests, instead. They suffer from numerous physical and psychological disorders and can't find a job. So what do they do. They kill themselves or get arrested like most other murderers instead of channeling that lost noble and courageousness against those that have played them.
For how long?
-1 bitch
What an ignorant statement. Exactly what I would expect from a YaHoo news or Dancing with the Stars headline person. You are the antithisis of what these young men are dying for. Keep your chin up though, most young men that serve realize exactly what they are doing. The fighting brings no honor other than looking out for those around them. Hmmm..if you economist/office types had any loyalty most of you would all be broke. If you made a trade that killed your friend (a real friend, not just a person you made money off of..) you would think of things in a different light. But for the most part you don't. You cat call Jamie Dimon, yet you conduct yourselves as perfect little Dimonds... Pure shitheads.
Only some of the men you mention have the skills required to be merceneries. Understanding warfare is not reading a manual. You may call yourself a prepper (and if you don't, well then good luck). If you have not seen the look of a person on the streets of Dubai..fighting for a place on a truck, just to work for a single day...then you are in for a shock. There is a growing crowd of Infantry that fought the ground, that realizes that the US is not supposed to fight tribal battles. Please know that we are not without concience, without remorse. You sit in your corner office and cast judgement on us...how far can you walk? When things go beyond any spreadsheet, how will you get home? Get to know some vets, it may just save your life. It is one thing to skwaqk online....Our country has slipped through our fingers....what is your corner office and rolly chair going to do? I hope you don't run into those you condemn.
Many of us are veterans silly.
A chemical test of the food and water in the mess halls might be in order-- just sayin--
Today Brandon Raub was moved to a different facility more than 3 hours away, making it difficult for his family, friends, and legal team to see him.
https://www.rutherford.org/
Where is the ACLU on this one? This case it would appear should be right in there wheel house.
imho, it's in the man called BRANDON RAUB's best interest that ACLU stay far far away from this one.