Americans cherish freedom. So they say. Indeed, they support a war on terrorists in freedom’s name.
But do they really want freedom? You be the judge.
One would expect freedom-loving people to be attentive to what their government does, considering that, historically, the gravest threats to liberty have come from people’s own governments. Since the attacks of September 11, most Americans have been eager to accept a host of violations of their rights by the very government charged with protecting them. But let that pass for now.
Let’s look at other areas where government conduct betrays a less-than-meticulous concern for individual freedom. For starters, how about the war on drug users, producers, and traders? Stripped of its self-serving mantle, this “war” is nothing but the imposition of a government decree concerning what peaceful individuals may grow, produce, trade, and ingest. Where did government acquire that power? It clearly violates our rights, as Thomas Jefferson recognized. There’s no such authority delegated by the Constitution. (Alcohol prohibition required an amendment.) It is a violation of freedom, period.
The standard defenses fall of their own weight. If people involved with drugs employ violence, that crime—not drug activity—can be prosecuted and punished. Most drug users commit no violent crimes. If they are dangerous to themselves, well, that comes with a free society. Other potentially dangerous things—from skydiving to alcohol—are not forbidden. Why forbid the arbitrary category of substances called “dangerous drugs”?
The government shamelessly tries to associate drugs with terrorism. But anyone who looks at the matter with an open mind will realize that it is the black market—born of prohibition—that links drugs to terrorism. Bin Laden couldn’t finance his operations from the sale of scotch whiskey or cigarettes. If heroin finances al-Qaeda, it’s only because the state has made heroin illegal. The connection between booze and organized crime was broken not by teetotaling, but by ending Prohibition.
Another area where Americans show no interest in freedom is mental-health. Has it occurred to more than a few people that the mental health laws are unlike any other laws in the land? Only under those laws can a person who has committed no crime be confined, drugged, and subjected to other violations against his will. As psychiatric critic (and psychiatrist) Thomas Szasz has pointed out for nearly half a century, these statutes cannot be squared with the rule of law, no matter how hard the self-serving mental-health professionals try.
But aren’t the alleged mentally ill dangerous to themselves and others? We have criminal laws for those who are truly dangerous to others. And in a free society, being a danger to oneself should not summon the power of the state, even if it comes dressed in the physician’s white coat. A diabetic who refuses to take his insulin is dangerous to himself—but the law recognizes his right to be so. Why are the so-called mentally ill handled differently? This gives the lie to those who demand parity for mental patients and who claim that mental illness is like any other illness.
But, say the advocates “for” the mentally ill, psychiatric patients don’t know what’s good for them. Here is where psychiatry runs squarely into the rule of law. It is an insult to a free society for doctors to be empowered to declare a conscious person incapable of knowing his own interests and to detain or drug him against his will. That happened in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany—it shouldn’t happen here.
As Szasz points out, mental illness is a metaphor denoting misbehavior. “Sick mind” is no more literal than “dirty mind.” The psychiatric establishment senses this problem; today it speaks of “brain disorders.” It has yet to furnish evidence that what used to be called mental illness is really brain disorder, but leave that aside. No law permits the involuntary hospitalization (that is, imprisonment) or drugging of people with proven brain disorders, such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Again, why are “schizophrenics” handled differently? What happened to parity?
It’s easy to say you’re for freedom. Integrity lies in conforming your actions to your words—even when it’s discomforting.
