Maggie's Farm

The Noonan piece is good. As is your appeal for grownups. BUT the balancing act I can't figure out is how to preserve the freedoms so precious to us all, whilst protecting people from the murderous impulses some harbor towards themselves and others. So forgive this sophomoric rambling, because I find myself flipflopping, and with no satisfactory conclusions, only contradictions. Where is Socrates when we need him?

First, will you agree that Cain was wicked when he objected "Am I my brother's keeper?" We are not our own, we occupy our bodies rent free courtesy of God, and are only here to serve others. So, at least for a believer, all freedom is given in the context of responsibilities to God and other humanoids and especially the dogs.

Having said that, I think God practices a certain benign neglect and allows us to cherish our fond toddler illusions of freedom. So we should probably allow others the same leeway. For example, I believe that everyone should be free to live as they please, even if I find their habits bizarre or repulsive. However, at what point do their freedoms impinge on mine? As, for example, if they pour toxins into my fields, or fill my children's school curriculum with arrant nonsense? Or smoke and drink to excess or become obese and become a charge on the community? If they develop TB or an STD and feel free to spread their diseases without guilt? Or if they feel free to abuse my religion and my gender, prey upon children? Or if their freedom allows them to rampage manic and/or paranoid and/or homicidal?

To take the most immediate example, one much in the news.. Am I free to kill myself if I decide that life is miserable and hopeless? I would say obviously not. Despair is the ultimate sin. To doubt the providence and mercy of God is wicked. What makes me human, that spark of the divine that resides within even the most feeble, witless and discouraged of all of us, is the ability to sacrifice my freedom to take up my responsibilities towards others. So, even if it weren't a sin, suicide is a crime because it hurts one's family and dependents, lets down everyone counting on one.

Adolescents screech for freedom. Grownups keep their commitments. Jesus told us how in seeking to save our life, we would lose it. How those who wish to follow him must take up their cross. That doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement of "I've just got to be me" variety freedom.

I am tired, so forgive the bad writing, and loose argument. Basically, I agree with what you write regularly about freedom from governmet control, and how grownups should take care of themselves, not look for handouts or pablum opionions. When we are shocked by tragedies like these, your warnings about not using it as a grandstand and exhortations to be grownup about it are good ones.

But I also believe that under certain circumstances, all of us can and should have our freedoms temporarily abridged. Censorship is necessary during some wars. A homicidal person should be locked up to protect their potential victims. A suicidal person ditto. A violent person ditto. When any of us become dumb, witless, vicious or out of control, we should lose our freedom. When your kid behaves badly, they are grounded.

I have often described the melodramatic family troubles that highlight for me the difficulty of balancing an individual's right to self-determination versus the right of society to be safe from insane aggression and paranoid, manic disruption of the life of those around one. Not because my situation is unique, but because I have never known when I am being an officious busybody (as now,for example, trying to figure out how to protect a manic relative's parental inheritance from being squandered), and when it is my duty to intervene (as the several times when I have had to commit furious and homicidal relatives who thought nothing was wrong with them but everyone around them was an assassin or, in my case, a traitor).

Depending on the person's diagnosis, as you BD well know, someone essentially harmless can sound dangerous (if they have an active imagination, obsessively repeat things they like the sound of, but never in life have even stepped on an ant) and someone truly dangerous can seem calm, in control, even charming...Women are raised to beware the handsome, charming stranger who offers them a lift, lest he turn out to be a sociopath.

Finally, I hope that you won't throw rotten vegetables at me or start to snore, but I do think that inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." is a huge problem. It wouldn't have stopped CHo, but colleges are full of walking wounded kids who need more and better care than they are presently getting. Children of selfish parents, kids of divorced parents, kids raised by the help, addicted kids, depressed kids, confused kids, etc. It is my belief that the reason why student mental health services are so skittish about serving even the obvious threats like Cho, is that if they admitted their responsibility for the violent threats, they would also have to help the far greater numbers of kids who perhaps could be more productive, healthier and happier with some well-timed mental health care.

Obviously, most people can do just fine without either therapy or meds, but they ought to be easily available to people during the time of life when the major disorders are likeliest to most dramatically affect a young life. A child living with loving parents can be protected, educated and cared for, even psychotic. A young person away at college thinks they are grownup, but does not yet have the brain development, let alone the wisdom to get themselve out of the hold of, say, a suicidal depression on their own. One breakdown and their life can dead end.

Enough from me...

LM,

Good points. And reminded me of one beloved and coddled teenager I know well who drifts despite incredible gifts, perplexed family, expensive therapy and meds for near killer depression. The worst of the illness now relieved but she won't buckle down to work. What she needs now is a job as a cashier in a supermarket with rude, in a hurry people making demands of her. I think that will get across to her the virtues of hard work and good grades in about two days, better than any lectures her parents can deliver...Most of us need those reality checks...I remember once, back when the rocks were young and dinosaurs roamed the earth, lobbying relatives to support me while I did an unpaid year's training in my profession. They looked blankly at me "You're a grownup, find a way to do it" I ended up scooping ice cream minimum wage to earn enough for my beans and rice and rent, and got a lot out of the year. Took a while to like the stingy relatives again, of course, but that's another story...