The Value of Being Politically "Incorrect"

In his recent book, The Insanity Offense, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey challenges many politically correct assumptions on how misguided theories about mental illness have created a dangerous situation.  He creates a reasoned prescription for change that is attracting large support.

Charita Goshay, an Ohio news columnist, recently discovered much the same thing. She spoke out after near tragedy affecting a local police officer and someone with a severe mental illness.  She wrote hoping to prevent a real tragedy but fearing a backlash from those touting civil liberties.

“In this politically correct era, I fully expected to be flayed and accused of being insensitive for calling for more inpatient treatment for seriously mentally ill people,” she wrote.  “Instead, what I received were a number of telephone calls and e-mails from relatives of people suffering from serious mental illness, all of whom had heartbreaking horror stories regarding their futile efforts to get inpatient treatment for their loved ones.”

She noted there are “but matters of degrees” between near tragedy and “a full-metal bloodbath.”

Of the people who contacted her she reported, “They're people who live in daily, mortal fear that their loved one is going to hurt someone else or themselves, and that only then will someone finally listen to what they've been saying all along.”

The hope is that policy makers will listen before the next preventable tragedy strikes.