Ugh, I hate the "Right-wing moran = mentally ill" crap.

[Odin2005]

I just alerted a thread in GD that is claiming all the mentally people Reagan deinstitutionalized became the Teabaggers and Birthers. and PEOPLE WERE REC-ING THAT BS!!! :puke:

[redqueen]

1. It excuses what they do.

Those people aren't mentally ill, they're just criminally stupid.

I want to hope the people who were engaging in that were just joking... but even still... that kind of joking reinforces the demonization of the mentally ill... and excuses the bad behavior of the selfish and ignorant.

*sigh*

[Louisiana1976]

4. Well said!

[redqueen]

2. Okay, but what about using a term like "batshit crazy" to describe someone like Michelle Bachmann?

Is that fair? I hope so cause it seems obvious to me that the term 'batshit crazy' in this context doesn't mean someone who's mentally ill... just someone that's so unbelievably stupid that it goes beyond the adjectives we use to describe stupidity.

[Odin2005]

3. That's fine, it's the explicit claims of mentall illness I don;t like.

[pipi_k]

5. Not talking specifically about the birthers and teabaggers, but...

honestly, some of those people (the RW "morans") really are mentally ill.

I know people would rather call them criminally stupid or whatever, but that's not fair either.

As someone with my own litany of mental health issues to deal with, I really wouldn't want people to call me criminally stupid or evil or whatever other labels people want to use to separate themselves from the "others" that they can't understand.

Usually people who believe ridiculous things are only looking for a way to feel "safe" in a world that they're losing control of.

and that's the root of most of it. We all want to feel, and be, safe. And we get our safety however we can.

anyway, I don't think it's sporting to call people criminals or whatever just because they're looking for ways to make sense of things in a world that feels like it's spinning out of control. Fear makes people think some very odd things...

:(

[Odin2005]

6. I think one has to distinguish mere neurosis from true mental illness.

A run-of-the-mill, say, conspiracy nut is neurotic, but he/she is not really mentally ill in the strict sense of the term. Neurosis is falling victim to our own cognitive biases, it is a psychogenic, mental illness implies a truly biological phenomenon.

[Cetacea]

8. I find the term "conspiracy nut" quite offensive.

Quite frankly the term and it's implications are quite cold and uncivil, especially on a progessive web site. It's offensive and that is why it is used in arguments, along with all other references to any slang terms for mental illness. "Psycho", "nut", wacko" ad naseum are effective insults/expressions/vents because the mentally ill have less respect than convicted murderers. Hence, these terms are really the ultimate insult, imo.
At least felons are still considered human, and not "out of their minds", and therefore, somehow less than human. Otherwise we'd be saying things like, "look, another conspiriacy felon".

I realize of course that terms such as these are so firmly embedded in our language that they are hardly recognizable as forms of discrimination.
Hell, I have been using the trem 'wacko' myself when describing Beck and others of his ilk.

[david13]

7. It's not criminal until there is some overt criminal act, such as

they are suggesting. There is no prior restraint. They cannot be put in jail because they may go and do something illegal.
But the evil nature, the hatred, the inability to see things clearly, that is far out there.
dc

[uriel1972]

9. It is easy to tag those you don't like

as mentally ill. Then you can lock them up and torture them behind closed doors. From what I can see the T-baggers and birthers are mostly 'norms' vastly misinformed and kept in a social 'hothouse' environment where the world is presented to them as a paranoid melodrama with them as the central characters in a vicious feedback loop. Whilst not 'paranoid' in the clinical sense they exhibit a paranoid world-view. And having had paranoid psychosis I can say how intoxicating and rewarding that worldview can be. I think if you can seperate and debrief these people as individuals you might not make them pleasant people, but you might be able to break that worldview feedback loop.