Public Discourse Needs Facts Not Propaganda

Friday August 10, 2012 the McLaughlin Group host asked "Should we be talking less about guns and more about our own laws in society and how we handle mental illness." (PBS, WGBH-TV Boston, 8:30 PM)

Clarence Page answered yes, mentioning that there is no connection between murder rates and gun ownership. The NRA ensured that pundits, journalists, and politicians know the facts on gun ownership. Still many people believe there is a connection between legal gun ownership and murder rates. They go down as per John Lott's book, More Guns Less Crime.

Along with guns as the usual suspect after every heinous shooting, mental illness gets second billing for blame. Do we need more discussion? Yes. But public discourse on that subject is controlled by drug companies and their lobbyists among psychiatrists and their alleged advocacy group NAMI. NAMi gets about $3 million each year from drug companies to promote drug treatment not rights of patients.

There is no causal connection between persons accused of mental illness and crime or violence. But there is a causal connection between taking psychiatric drugs and violence, suicide and homicide. In almost every instance of mass murder in the US in recent years, the shooter was taking or stopped taking psychiatric drugs. That is the issue, the elephant in the room, that is hiding in plain site that few pundits and journalists or politicians speak about The psychiatric lobby has no opposition lobby to address psychiatric abuse.

Mental Illness is like Pepsi and Coca Cola. It is a media mirage created by psychiatrists and drug companies. There is no pathology for these "illnesses" created by consensus. They promote fantasies in the media which millions of people believe with no basis in fact. Chemical imbalance of the brain is one. It is pure hot air.

Psychiatry is the largest boondoggle in history wasting taxpayer funds and harming people. It is a means of social control with no due process protections. It is dangerous and was used effectively by Stalin, Hitler and Mao.

See. e,g, Boston University's Margaret Hagen's, Whores of the Courts.
Robert Whitaker's blog and books.