re: #246 Obdicut

That’s a false dichotomy, though. We don’t have to choose between having a debate about mental health and one about vitriol. Both are important.

The problem of mental health is an eternal and thorny one. It comes down to three basic problems:

1. Unlike physical illness, the seriously mentally ill usually resist treatment.
2. The mentally ill often intentionall mask the seriousness of their problems when ‘threatened’ with confinement.
3. There is a lack of public funds to fully address all the mentally ill we have in this country.

I would be happy if one of the things that came out of this was an emphasis on providing mental health for veterans.

But that doesn’t in any way diminish the importance of stopping the violent rhetoric. Indeed, I don’t see them as fully separate issues. A lot of the paranoid, over-the-top, conspiratorial vitriol that Beck spews is only a shade more sane than what Loughner has said.

It’s not a false dichotomy. There is not one single shred of evidence that political vitriol was a reason for Loughner’s decision to go on a shooting spree—if there is, then cite some evidence of direct influence of political rhetoric. There is a lot of evidence that he was a paranoid, delusional, and seriously disturbed man who was unable to deal with his mental issues.

On your three bullet points, I couldn’t agree more on the serious challenge we have trying to deal with the mentally ill. They are very often among the permanent homeless class. That issue I think is clearly germane to the shooting.

All the rest about political vitriol is just huff and puff. Sure, it is real, and may be a problem that needs to be dealt with. But why in the context of this shooting? Loughner played video games with his friends as reported in early background stories about him…why not have a debate about video game violence? Because there is nothing to suggest video games made him do this.