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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived

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To: Neocon who wrote (4000)	1/22/2003 5:40:24 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) of 7720

Twenty years ago I would have agreed with you without reservation. But now, it's a harder issue for me. I find this one very hard because I have been involved in two actions where the state was trying involuntarily to commit a person who didn't want to be committed. Where is the line between patent irrationality and eccentricity? You would think it would be an easy line to draw. I can assure you that there are cases where it is anything but. I cannot get into the details without revealing client confidences, but I will say that in both cases the state's psychologist testified on direct examination that the person was so irrational that they had to be institutionalized for their own protection, and in both cases on cross examination they admitted that there was no issue of life or death, but of quality of life, and they were imposing their own views of what constituted a quality life on people who might hold legitimately different views of what constitutes a quality life. I won one and lost one, as it turns out. But I still regret that I was not able to keep a person who was, admittedly, very eccentric in her lifestyle but who was not going to go out and kill herself or anybody else out of a mental hospital. And if you have ever been in a mental hospital without a clear mental diagnosis that can be treated by known means of treatment that will lead to release -- well, I frankly wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. So while I'm tempted to agree with you, I turn in the end to say, why is it the business of some stranger who just happens to have gotten hired by the government to make these life decisions for people who just want to live (or not live) their lives as they choose. Because now that we have abandoned the concept of the divine right of kings we recognize that the government is just ordinary people being given extraordinary power to do things that can be at times quite serious limitations on our ability to make decisions about our own lives.

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