The Freedom Bulletin

Photo by Wing-Chi Poon, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5

The title of this post must be what the psychiatric and medical establishment is thinking of late.

A bunch of researchers recently came out with a study showing that giving oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in bonding, to people with Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism, makes them more social. I am willing to concede that oxytocin and social behavior are correlated, although as a dualist I do not believe that hormones or brain processes actually cause mental states.

But what I don’t get is why anyone would think this is a good idea. Asperger’s and other mental differences are not illnesses. They are not unpleasant things like pains or sicknesses that people want to get rid of. They are a part of people’s personalities, and a part of who they are. To get rid of Asperger’s syndrome would not be to help people but to change them into someone else.

Some people are social, and some people are not very social. Some people have lots of oxytocin, some people have an average amount, and some people don’t have a lot. All these ways of being are equally good.

To say that oxytocin can “help” people with Asperger’s to be more social is like saying that hair dye can “help” blond people to become brunette. If you want to be brunette, than yes, hair dye enables you to do that. But why would society want everyone in the world to be brunette? The world should have people with all different hair colors, just like it should have people with all different temperaments.  

If you want to take hormones to change the way you are, fine. But by no means should people be encouraged to do this. To say that making people with Asperger’s more social is a way of “helping” them is incredibly insulting, intolerant, and cruel. As long as you do not violate the rights of others, no way of being is better than other ways.  If less social people have trouble getting along in society, then that reflects badly on our society and indicates a need for our society to change, not for perfectly good people to change who they are to fit society’s unjust expectations.

In a Boston Globe opinion piece today, Tom Cosgrove argues against allowing casinos in Massachusetts:

“New revenue,’’ though, is just casino-speak for a new tax: a sucker tax on those willing to plunk down cash on tables tilted sharply toward the pit bosses. A sucker tax on those willing to sit at slot machines ergonomically designed to keep players in thrall of the lights and levers for hours at a time – complex algorithms creating the illusion of near-victory as wallets empty.

I’m not sure whether Cosgrove is saying that gambling itself amounts to a tax (which would be completely false because people can choose whether or not to gamble but people are required by law to pay taxes) or whether he is just arguing against taxing gambling. I’m going to assume the latter.

Although I am generally anti-tax, I favor bringing casinos to Massachusetts. I believe that taxes on gambling are much less objectionable than income taxes because people can choose whether or not to gamble and thereby choose to avoid the tax, while everyone is forced to pay the income tax. The government could then use the new revenue to cut the income or sales tax (it won’t, of course, but it should).

I don’t buy the paternalistic argument that casinos are bad because they cause gambling addiction. If you choose to gamble, that is your choice. If you choose to spend all your free time gambling and to lose all of your money gambling, that is also your choice. The presence of casinos does not force people to gamble. In fact, by banning casinos, the government is hurting people who otherwise would gamble, because it’s stopping them from doing something they want to do.

I don’t see any good reason to ban casinos in Massachusetts. They provide a fun activity for many people (I myself don’t gamble because I don’t want to lose money, but just because I don’t find something fun doesn’t mean other people don’t), and taxing them might allow other taxes to be decreased. Why not allow casinos?

The recent death of a 15-year-old girl named Phoebe Prince has caused a lot of people, including myself, to consider what should be done about bullying. Phoebe, a freshman at South Hadley High School, killed herself because of relentless bullying, both at school and online. Lots of people think that schools should do more to educate students about bullying or that parents should monitor their children’s internet use. I think the solution to bullying is to make it a crime.

Inflicting harm on innocent people is wrong, regardless of whether the harm is physical or mental, and it should be punished by the law. Yes, bullying would be difficult to define and even more difficult to prove, but just because a law would be difficult to enforce does not mean that it shouldn’t be a law. Why not make it illegal, say, to make insulting, personal comments about an innocent person that cause emotional distress?

Criminalizing bullying would help victims. Instead of only being able to report bullying to school officials who may or may not take it seriously, kids could report bullying to the police, and the perpetrators could be thrown in jail, as they deserve.

Additionally, the students who caused Phoebe Prince to die should be charged with homicide. It doesn’t make sense that someone can be charged with homicide for an accidental car crash or an act of self-defense but not for intentionally tormenting an innocent person to the extent that their life is no longer worth living. The people who bullied Phoebe caused her death, not through physical means, but they caused it nonetheless. Perhaps they did not know that she would commit suicide as a result of their actions, but they should have known that this was a possibility. They should be charged with involuntary manslaughter at the very least.

While educating students about bullying is always good, it is not a complete solution to the problem. Some people are just bad people who enjoy making others suffer, and telling them that bullying is wrong will not change that. It’s also good for parents to discourage bullying, but parents should never monitor their children’s internet use because this violates children’s privacy rights and punishes all kids for the actions of a few.

People have a right to be free of mental torment, and bullying violates this right. As an action that violates the rights of others, bullying should be dealt with not by schools or parents, but by the legal system. Society needs to send the message that inflicting mental harm on people can be just as bad as physical harm, and making bullying a criminal offense is the only way to do that.

If you haven’t seen this, you have to watch! On Saturday Night Live, Jon Hamm played Scott Brown, who interrupts a meeting of the top Democrats in Congress with hilarious results.

Check it out!

Right now a woman named Carolyn Riley is on trial in Plymouth Superior Court for first-degree murder for allegedly giving her 4-year-old daughter, Rebecca, excessive doses of three psychiatric medications that led to her death. Rebecca’s father, Michael Riley, will go on trial later for similar charges. The defense is claiming that Rebecca died of pneumonia, not from the drugs. While this could be true, I believe that both parents, as well as the psychiatrist who prescribed the drugs, committed a terrible wrong and should be punished.

When Rebecca was just 2 years old, her mother brought her to Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, a psychiatrist who diagnosed her with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and later bipolar disorder and prescribed her three psychiatric medications. Incidentally, Kifuij was also the psychiatrist of Rebecca’s two older siblings and gave them similar diagnoses and medications. The diagnosis seems to have been based entirely on the fact that Carolyn Riley said that her daughter was aggressive and had mood swings.

How could people think it is OK for a 2-year-old to be given mind-altering drugs? From all accounts, it seems like there was nothing wrong with Rebecca. A psychologist who visited the home said that she was well-adjusted and showed no signs of mental disorders or conditions. As for aggression and mood swings, what would you expect from a 2-year-old? Little kids have temper tantrums. They also tend to be aggressive, because they usually have not yet developed the capacity for empathy or respect for the rights of others. That’s just how little kids are. There’s nothing wrong with that. And even if Rebecca was more aggressive than average or had more mood swings than average, there’s nothing wrong with that, either. It is good for people to have diverse personality traits – some aggressive, some passive, some with strong emotions, others more calm. Why would you want to take everyone who differs from the average and make them be average?

Everyone who allowed Rebecca to be given these drugs but could have stopped it should be charged with child abuse. This includes her parents, as well as Dr. Kifuji, who outrageously not only was never indicted by a grand jury but is still practicing psychiatry! It’s ridiculous that parents can be charged with child endangerment for leaving their kids alone for a few minutes in a perfectly safe place, which doesn’t harm the kids at all, but cannot be charged with anything for branding kids with a lifelong label of mental illness and forcing them to take mind-altering drugs!

Another thing worth mentioning is that the Rileys were receiving about $2300 of federal disability benefits each month, much of it because of the psychiatric diagnoses of their two older children.  There is clearly something wrong with this system. Why should people be given free money simply because they have been diagnosed with a mental illness? People with bipolar disorder, ADHD, and many other so-called mental illnesses may have more challenging lives than others, but they can work, so why would they need disability benefits? Of course, little kids don’t work anyways, which makes it even more puzzling that they were given disability benefits. Plus, this system creates an incentive to have your kids or yourself diagnosed with a mental illness, even if you don’t actually have one.

The only people who should see psychiatrists (and even then, only if they truly want to and come up with the idea on their own) are those who have a mental problem so severe that they cannot function. This certainly does not include little kids who were brought to a psychiatrist by their mother and have nothing wrong with them. For whatever reason, be it genuine concern, desire for disability benefits, or greed on the part of psychiatrists and drug companies, society is narrowing the range of acceptable human behavior by declaring more and more personality traits “unhealthy” and then “curing” them with brainwashing or medication. Any deviation from the average is considered a mental illness, and people are encouraged to seek therapy for every tiny problem they have. This is evil, it destroys diversity and independence, and it may have taken little Rebecca Riley’s life.