The sick contributer to mass murders
Link to Quote: https://www.samhsa.gov/homelessness-programs-resources/hpr-resources/jfks-legacy-community-based-care
There is a reason why the working poor are accosted and harrassed when they make their perilous trip to and from work via the subway. There is even a reason why people get pushed off a subway platform. There is also a reason why we are plagued by the killing of the most innocent among us in what should be the safest places in our communities.
That reason is forever liked to one individual and her brother who was once president of the US.
Rosemary Kennedy
The sister of JFK was once confined to a "facility for the mentally disabled" and was subjected to an experimental lobotomy. Her brothers didn't know about it or her disappearance until many years later when their father Joseph Kennedy had a stroke. John Kennedy learned about it therefore, as president. He acted on impulse to correct the many complaints about mental institutions at the time. As a matter of fact it would be his final act as president. It was called the Community Mental Health Act of 1963.
John Kennedy explained it this way:
"Finally, and of deep concern, I believe that the abandonment of the mentally ill and the mentally retarded to the grim mercy of custodial institutions too often inflicts on them and on their families a needless cruelty which this Nation should not endure. The incidence of mental retardation in this country is three times as high as that of Sweden, for example--and that figure can and must be reduced."
"Very few in Congress or in the nation at the time, could have anticipated how quickly Kennedy's dream of reducing the number of those institutionalized. By 1980, the number of patients at public psychiatric hospitals had declined by 75% and by 200 only 55,000 remained. The numbers continued to drop, and by 2009 the institutionalized population was just 2% of what it was in 1963."
http://www.stateoftheunionhistory.com/2019/06/1963-john-f-kennedy-community-mental.html
John Kennedy must have felt that society or as he described it "the community" was fairly strong back then, because what he essentially did was to subject them to the mentally ill. America of the 1960s was a very straight & strong society, but nobody was able to deal with what would follow. That was left for the police, usually after somebody was assaulted, injured or killed. Thus, it is not guns that plagues the nation. It is the emotions of one man. A man that history has immortalized.
Why is it that such well meaning ideas turn out so badly?
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In 1963 nobody thought much about that law.
I doubt many would ever realize the havoc it would cause
Too many nutcases on the loose and unsupervised
What happened back then with the "warehousing of the crazies" was shameful in how they went about it and the abuse that the system allowed. But like all things the government does, this was overdone the other way also. There must be a better way to find the middle ground where those who need to be locked away for their own safety as well as the safety of others can be handed in a safe and humane manner while working to better the treatment of those in the public. However I'm not sure if the bigots and losers among us can be changed in how they treat those who need mental heath help, right now the world seems to be against anybody who seeks such help.
If there is no middle ground to be found, put me down for the warehousing!
You are absolutely correct, snuffy. Not only was there misuse of those that needed help but it was used to institutionalize those that did not have a mental issue. The Kennedy decision was 60 years ago and help in many forms have made huge advancements in that time period.
But it was poorly done. Too many are left on their own rather than any organized system set up to help them. As pointed out by Nerm_L, it was handed over to profit centers which require boat loads of money to function and they are not providing sufficient resources to actually help. We need to find a middle ground as there are some who really should not be out in public.
So tell us which is worse?
I guess that depends on where you are? if you are institutionalized without cause it is worse for you than not institutionalizing those that need it.
Tell that to the six families who are grieving now.
I hope that xtian school was self insured.
Essentially that was a hate-crime.
Have you ever heard of that?
... god's will.
Google Eric Holder. You'll find it there.
Agreed
People that can't tell the difference.
the child molesting war criminal POTUS from '81 to '89 killed off the federal mental health programs.
Those who live behind a computer screen, for sure.
I was wondering who it was that tried to blame Reagan. Thanks for raising your hand.
Where is your friend today?
Where's the profit in addressing mental health? The delivery of medical care requires boatloads of money that generates enough profit to make an oil baron blush.
The problem isn't Kennedy's law that replaced institutional warehouses with open-air warehouses. The problem arose when medical care was gifted to the financial sector. And Jack Kennedy didn't do that.
Along with not institutionalizing people who should be, I believe handing out SSRIs and other drugs like candy play a big role.
Easier than actually having to parent your children.
You don't know what you are talking about, who are you to say what a doctor/psychiatrist prescribes for their patients? Same goes to Nerm - what the hell are you actually talking about?
Other countries have mentally ill people too....damn few mass shootings.
Many Mass Shooters Share A Common Bond: Male Grievance Culture
White anxiety finds a home at Fox News
One cannot take the (correct) position that mental health issues in America must be addressed through well-configured, well-staffed and well funded programs while simultaneously lobbying/legislating against the ability of mentally-unhealthy, known violent & young, intellectually immature individuals to legally attain guns!
Nor does it make sense, while acknowledging there is a mental health problem in America, to simultaneously evade the reality, that a society with such a problem should do what it can, to minimize needless, extremely dangerous weapons.
NO ONE OUTSIDE OF THE MILITARY NEEDS AN ASSAULT WEAPON the only purpose of which is to destroy property and lives.
Attempts by right wing politicians in bed with the NRA to make mental health in and of itself the problem as opposed to gun violence and guns, is to piss in our faces and tell us it’s raining!
Mental health is a problem, assault weapons are another problem and, assault weapons in the hands of people with mental illness and the hands of those who have no business possessing an assault weapon is another problem!