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The Intellectually Dishonest Mental Health Crisis

Debate Information

There's a rising trend in claims of Mental Health problems that are being used as a method of diversion from a very real and underlying issue in this Country.

Before we dive too deep into this I'd like to point out a very real red flag regarding this topic and that is that the vast majority of the conversations around this issue aren't even being started by those who are supposedly mentally ill.  It would seem that the origination of the majority of the claims are coming from other people who would have us all believe that it's not a matter of Evil, it's not a matter of poor choices, no...instead it's that the person was mentally ill.

So I'll start with a conclusion and work backwards into the premise.

Despite popular opinion, there are a great deal of Evil people in this world and a great number of them are in the United States.  That said, Mental Health is LARGELY being used as a scapegoat for Evil people who are doing Evil things so that instead of admitting that there is no permanent solution for preventing Evil...we now have something to target, blame and shine a spotlight on.

Now I respect everyone's right to disagree and I expect that at least some of you will and that said I'd appreciate it if you all would keep this civil for the sake of an intelligent debate.

There's no doubt a serious issue in the United States with Mental Illness...I make no effort to undermine the seriousness of the issue or to suggest that it's not a real problem...because it is.  Instead what I'm suggesting is that our figureheads (Those that speak on our behalf depending on who you support) are using the very real Mental Health issue in the United States to artificially build political support for their cause whatever that may be.  I believe they're doing this because as political figureheads they're expected to come up with solutions and results for the very real issues we face in America today and, since you can't get brownie points for a problem that can't be solved, it's become very popular to cast the finger at Mental Health as the culprit to violence and other sorts of crimes within our Country. 

Evil is awkward, it's an uncomfortable word that we don't like using, or so I've noticed.  It seems this way so much that the opposite of Good is no longer Evil, it's "Bad".  Yes, I feel much more comfortable saying that someone is "Bad" than to say that they're "Evil".  I would suggest to you all that "Bad" is an adjective used to classify taste, preference and adherence to rules.  Evil is the opposite of Good and Evil is what aptly describes someone who willingly commits acts of immorality without apology or remorse.  It's that simple.  More people are Evil than you might think...but that makes us all really uncomfortable so we like to use either "Bad" or "Not so good"...we wouldn't want to offend or cast judgement now.

And therein lies the problem...we're lying to ourselves.  When someone does something horrible like shooting up a school and killing children in the process, we're quick to start talking about "How sick the person must've been" and "How much help they needed with their illness".  We're essentially trying to redistribute the guilt and blame for the person who committed the atrocity...and  (This is just my personal opinion) I've concluded that we do it because we don't want to acknowledge that they're Evil.  We don't want to consider that we walk by Evil people every day, we don't want to think about how many Evil people live next door to us or how many times we came close to being a victim of all the Evil people that we run into all the time.  It's uncomfortable right?

While I can understand and empathize with people about how it disrupts the beautiful veil that we live under, it's simply intellectually dishonest and even immoral to go about stripping shame from the perpetrator of heinous acts by insisting that they were just the victim of a system that didn't help them when they were mentally ill.  Sick in the head or not, Evil is Evil.  If, and only if the person has a legitimate type of mental retardation and they aren't consciously aware of their actions and the consequences of them...then sure, give them a pass and put them in a padded room for their own protection and the protection of others.  Everyone else though needs to be held fully accountable for their actions and we should stop casting the responsibility onto the Medical field for solving the actions of Evil people.  If you think it's ok to go into a school and shoot the place up and kill innocent Children...then you're not ill...you're Evil.  


  1. Live Poll

    Is mental illness being used as a scapegoat for the actions of Evil people?

    8 votes
    1. Yes
      87.50%
    2. No
      12.50%
"If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

"There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

"Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".





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  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -   edited August 2019
    I guess it could be argued that "evil" people are only soul-sick? They were not born/created evil, their soul got ill somewhere along the way... Unless god intentionally creates evil persons on purpose...Then they're even less to blame, no?
    AlofRI
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • TKDBTKDB 694 Pts   -  
    I blame the Second Amendment, as it's currently written, for it being an outdated failure, on its own written word's.

    I blame the excessive amounts of guns in the U.S. as another part of the Gun culture problem, in the U.S.
     
    400 million guns, outnumbering the very citizens of the country, 329 million.

    And I blame the lack of accountability, when it comes to those overall guns, being that the illegal guns, that are being sold by a "gun dealers," across the country, are selling guns without serial numbers on them?

    So now we have lawful gun owners, and unlawful gun owners, killing citizens since 1966. (That was another mass shooting incidence)

     Look for the movie, called "The Deadly Tower."

    Maybe closeted issue, when it comes to some of the guns in the U.S., is that some are addicted to owning, and shooting guns? 

    And some, don't have a clue, about a gun owners, gun addiction problem? 

    https://www-psychologytoday-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/time-out/201803/americas-gun-addiction?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&amp&usqp=mq331AQEKAFwAQ==#referrer=https://www.google.com&amp_tf=From %1$s&ampshare=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/time-out/201803/americas-gun-addiction

    "Renee Garfinkel Ph.D."

    "Time Out

    America's Gun Addiction

    Our nation is addicted to guns, with increasingly deadly consequences.

    Posted Mar 26, 2018

    Wherever you find addiction, there you find denial.  The alcoholic who says, “I can quit any time I want,” and the gambling addict who says, “If I hit this time it’ll all work out,” are in the same boat as those who say, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  They are all addicts in denial, refusing to see the overwhelming evidence of the damage caused by their behavior.

    When allowed to continue unchecked, addictions destroy lives."



    PlaffelvohfenCYDdhartaVaulkZombieguy1987
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -   edited August 2019
    I guess it could be argued that "evil" people are only soul-sick? They were not born/created evil, their soul got ill somewhere along the way... Unless god intentionally creates evil persons on purpose...Then they're even less to blame, no?
    I'm going to disagree just because "Illness" implies unequivocally a lack of fault and blame.  We can probably all agree that ill people should never be shamed for their illness.  No one ever went into a hospital room to see their sick relative and and started shaming them for being ill.  Injured maybe, never illness.

    I personally think that this is another example of the natural urge to refrain from casting shame and blame because it makes us uncomfortable.  Classic: "Their soul got ill somewhere along the way".  

    So there I was walking home just minding my own business when...BAAM!  Illness just ambushed my soul and jumped all in it.  lol

    Don't take that as an insult, I don't mean to suggest anything negative, it's just funny.
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk

    No worries, as long as we're not disingenuous in our arguments, we can agree to disagree in a civil manner... ;)  

    But what exactly do you mean by "evil"? Maybe we need to first establish unambiguously what we mean by that in this discussion... Is it just a higher level of "bad" or is there something more ominous about it? It's not easy to define, we can find a myriad of synonyms but what is evil, ontologically? 

    My first impulse, being an atheist and all that, would be to say that evil doesn't exist... Since I don't believe that god exists, I can't believe that the opposite of god exists either and the term "evil" seems to be implicitly related to the existence of god, I mean can one define "evil" without any reference to god, either directly or indirectly? 
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk
    I personally think that this is another example of the natural urge to refrain from casting shame and blame because it makes us uncomfortable.
    ? I think on the contrary that the natural urge is to throw blame around, for everything... We've been blaming nature since before we understood fire, we blamed the stars alignments for bad luck and whatnot, something happens and we need someone guilty or responsible, we so easily and loudly condemn others without even knowing the facts (a quick glance at social media should demonstrate this...).
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen

    Good points all around and yes I agree with your suggestion that an acknowledgement of Evil implies an acknowledgement of the existence of a supreme moral authority (God).  I suppose it's fair that if you side with Atheism that you shouldn't be required to truly acknowledge Good and Evil in the traditional sense.  I'm not sure where to take it from there, don't get me wrong...I think it's called naturalism?  The idea that science can account for just about everything I think?  I don't personally subscribe to the idea so I'm not versed enough to suggest a course correction in regards to how I think an Atheist would or should handle the idea that some people are Evil.

    In my personal opinion, Evil is a mindset and you don't necessarily need actions in order to evaluate someone as being Good or Evil.  I described evil in the original post as someone who willingly commits acts of immorality without apology or remorse.  I suppose the term "Immoral" would need to be removed, replaced or redefined in the case of Atheism because it would be fluid word with no concrete definition depending largely on your cultural values.  I suppose we could all agree that hurting or killing other people without justification and making no apology or having no remorse would serve well as a starting point to defining a universal understanding of what Evil or Wicked behavior is.

    Again I'm kind of stuck on how to discuss morality without beginning from the idea of a supreme moral authority so your take on the idea would probably serve well to establish a base-line.
    Plaffelvohfen
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • DeeDee 5395 Pts   -  
    Yes , mental illness in the U S gets tossed about as the go to excuse for every new atrocity and Donald Trump is one of the main drivers of this narrative which to me is disgraceful and decent Americans should challenge his nonsense as its counterproductive and damaging ......

    From US today .......

    .DETROIT – After a harrowing weekend in Texas and Ohio where mass shootings left 31 people dead and dozens more injured, President Donald Trump called for culture change to a stop the glorification of violence in video games and online platforms, an end to bigotry and hatred and reforms to mental health laws. 

    But his statements about mental health – referring to mass shooters as "mentally ill monsters" and suggesting "involuntary confinement" for some people with mental illness were off the mark, said Kevin Fischer, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

    He noted that there is little correlation between mental illness and violent killings. 

    "Study after study has shown us that is simply not true. It’s actually more often the reverse," he said, in that people living with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.

    "Racism, hate, white supremacy are not diagnosable mental illnesses."

  • all4acttall4actt 305 Pts   -  
    Lets start with a definition of morality:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality

    Next lets define evil:  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil

    Now in each of these definitions you will find there is no link to any diety.  So to believe in morality or evil does not require the belief in a higher power.

    The truth is evil people do exist.  It is also a fact that some people are born that way.  They are generally referred to as psychopaths.  They have no conscience to guide them.  They do what they want when they want and have no feelings of remorse if their actions negatively affect any other person.  There is no known cure or successful therapy to help change this condition.  If a person such as this chooses to be violent there is nothing else to call them but evil.
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    all4actt said:
    Lets start with a definition of morality:https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality

    Next lets define evil:  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil

    Now in each of these definitions you will find there is no link to any diety.  So to believe in morality or evil does not require the belief in a higher power.

    The truth is evil people do exist.  It is also a fact that some people are born that way.  They are generally referred to as psychopaths.  They have no conscience to guide them.  They do what they want when they want and have no feelings of remorse if their actions negatively affect any other person.  There is no known cure or successful therapy to help change this condition.  If a person such as this chooses to be violent there is nothing else to call them but evil.
    @all4actt You are correct my friend!  There is no link in the definition authority to a deity.

    What @Plaffelvohfen and I were discussing is the conundrum that comes up when you try to discuss the topic:
    "What is Good" and "What is Evil".  The reason it becomes a conundrum is because, despite popular belief, the origins of the two and therefor morality itself aren't so clearly understood.  There is still a raging hot debate concerning whether Morality is a result of evolution or whether it comes from somewhere else.  Respecting @Plaffelvohfen and his/her choice to maintain Atheism as a subscribed ideology means that I can't just assume where morality comes from in favor of what I'm comfortable with and unfortunately I don't know enough about the other side of the argument concerning the naturalistic explanation of the origins of morality.

    Therein lies the issue.

    Plaffelvohfen
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • 대왕광개토대왕광개토 235 Pts   -  
    @Vaulk I agree with your claim that mental illness is often used as a scapegoat for the actions of evil people. But I would like to say that the reason why some people defend the criminal is because they know that we humans often make irrational decision even if the price of doing it is high. For example, when people get severely depressed, they become suicidal and sometimes commit suicide even though they know that their decision will have devastating consequences. I also believe that most of us are capable of doing bad things under some circumstances. However, I do not mean to say that those who commit crime should be free from blames and punishments.
  • PlaffelvohfenPlaffelvohfen 3985 Pts   -  
    @all4actt

    I understand that and I could work with these definitions, but as @Vaulk mentionned: "There is still a raging hot debate concerning whether Morality is a result of evolution or whether it comes from somewhere else."

    I would personally side with Morality being the result of evolution, an emerging biological impulse that evolved through the advent of cerebral cortexes, and subjective in nature... But under certain premises, Morality needs to be objective and necessitate the reality of a supreme entity from which ultimate authority comes from...  In order to have a meaningful debate, all participants must use the same definitions or else the discussion will be pointless imo... :/ 

    Those are questions that we could of course debate but it would lead us away from the current discussion into a whole new debate... 
    Vaulk
    " Adversus absurdum, contumaciter ac ridens! "
  • DeeDee 5395 Pts   -  
    @Plaffelvohfen

    It would make for a good debate but would need to be done as a separate topic 
    Plaffelvohfen
  • all4acttall4actt 305 Pts   -  
    Vualk

    If you want to talk about the orgin of morality.  I believe that a persons morality starts within their personality.  It is than further developed by the way they are raised.  It is further shaped by the community they live in.  There are people that will reject the moral values they grew up with and I believe when this happens it is something within them and/or new influences that cause those changes.

    If you look at tribal activity and societies from all over the world even before the time of Christianity there have always been some type of moral code.  Even today moral codes are different depending on who raised you, where you are raised and even what generation you come from.  Moral codes are constantly evolving.
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -   edited August 2019
    @all4actt

    So if I understand you, your conclusion is that Morality typically begins with your own personal opinion (Subjectivity) and is further developed and shaped by your ethnicity , am I getting that right?

    If this is your conclusion then what I'm understanding is that you don't think there's any such thing as objective morality.  Being that different people can have different standards of morality would mean that there truly is no such thing as right or wrong...only "What I like" and "What I don't like".  These are obviously simplified versions but none-the-less would be accurate in describing each individual's opinion on Morality because none of the standards could be based on objective facts, instead they'd all be based on biased opinions and therefor none are necessarily right and none are necessarily wrong. 

    If this is true then there's no such thing as Good or Evil and we don't have the right to tell someone else that what they're doing is Evil...I suppose we could tell them that we don't like it though.

    Furthermore if "Moral codes are constantly evolving" then that means they can change...for the good or for the bad.  If they can change for the good or bad then there must be a standard above these changes to judge them as good or bad.  
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5968 Pts   -  
    On a very fundamental level, everything we do is based on how our brain works. Different people have different brains, leading to different behaviors. If we are to accept that people should bear any responsibility at all for their actions, then we have to acknowledge that excusing one's actions based on one's mental aspects is a fallacy. As such, people with mental health issues should be held to the same accountability standard as everyone else.

    At the same time, it is hard for someone with "normal" mental health to imagine what it is like to be a person with a mental illness. There are people out there having actual deviations in their mental processes. There are people having illusions, when literally they see something that is not there. If you have the time, I encourage you to watch a few documentaries on people with such issues; it is fascinating just how different the world they see is from ours.

    When you cannot reasonably tell reality from illusion, no matter how hard you try, then how can you possibly act in accordance with the expected set of morals? Even if you fully accept those morals, you still cannot evaluate the reality around you accurately, and you are going to make mistakes.

    I think the questions of "who is responsible" and "how should we respond" should be separated from each other. When a person with mental illness commits a crime, they are responsible for their actions. However, locking them up in prison afterwards is not constructive, as their mental health issues are not going to magically disappear after a period of isolation. If our system of justice is not about "punishing" people (and it should not be about "punishing" people), but instead about rehabilitating them, then people with mental issues should be treated in a hospital, not in prison.
    Vaulk
  • VaulkVaulk 813 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar

    Well said all around.  I actually don't have any disagreements with you.  The only caveat I'd like to suggest is in your statement 
    MayCaesar said:
    When a person with mental illness commits a crime, they are responsible for their actions. 
    I think the issue I'm trying to point out in this debate is that the "Assumption" that the crimes committed by mass shooters are a result of mental illness represents a failure as a society to respond accordingly.  The minute anyone suggests that an act of vileness was the result of a mental deficiency there's an onslaught of cries for mental health awareness when I have serious doubts as to whether or not these people (In general) are mentally ill by any standards.  The norm should be (In my opinion) a fair casting of blame on the perpetrator followed by acknowledgement by the masses IF and only IF any official results determine that the perpetrator was mentally ill and not of the sound mind to make conscientious decisions.

    Instead what we have is the assumption that the person was mentally ill.  This is caused (Again in my opinion) by the hesitation to acknowledge that Evil exists around us.  The general mindset appears to be: "We cannot control evil nature within the human psyche...the potential always exists, therefor let us not acknowledge it for it cannot be controlled and there's nothing we can do to solve it.  Let us instead target something tangible that we can actually confront...regardless of whether or not it will solve anything".  This is intellectually dishonest at best.
    MayCaesar
    "If there's no such thing as a question then what kind of questions do people ask"?

    "There's going to be a special place in Hell for people who spread lies through the veil of logical fallacies disguised as rational argument".

    "Oh, you don't like my sarcasm?  Well I don't much appreciate your stup!d".


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