Everything we do affects us all

December 15, 2012

Connecticut Tragedy Tied to Reagan Shutting Mental Hospitals

When President Reagan cut the tax rates on rich Americans by two thirds he also had to cut some other things to make it add up. The biggest thing he cut was our nation's vast system of public mental health institutions. Since then we've seen our streets become littered with mentally ill homeless people and it has become prohibitively expensive for people to get treatment for loved ones with serious psychological problems.

Since then, tragic eruptions of senseless violence have become an all too regular event in our lives in the USA. Clearly this troubled young man needed care he didn't get and now we all pay with our hearts and the lives of innocents.

Certainly there are other issues, involved. The drug war has overburdened our law enforcement and penal system and it has forced many young pot users to 'fake pot' bath salts which rot the brain and cocaine users to 'fake cocaine' crystal meth' which is mental illness in a bottle. The limited success of the drug war has resulted in people taking man made poisonous substitutes which are far far worse for one's health and truly can mentally disable the user.

And of course, gun laws allowing unlimited ownership of  powerful weapons never even dreamt of 50 years ago is utter insanity.

America has been going backwards for over thirty years because of our lack of investment in the public good and lack of the taxation policies we had from 1932 to 1986 which allowed for it. And of course our insane drug and gun laws.

God help us come to our senses.

2 comments:

  1. This is completely inaccurate. There was a push to release more patients at the same time there was a reliance on drugs. Reagan did shut down hospitals in CA when he was governor, but by the time he did this they were mostly empty.

    http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html?pagewanted=all

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  2. Hi! Have you ever paid attention, has your writting level improved recently?

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