More On My Views.

I think part of the problem with the policy regarding groups like the mentally ill is that it's guided by the public's misperceptions about the topic. And sometimes the information they have is all wrong even, as media sources try to put out stories that either people want to hear or that serve some agenda of theirs. I know by the age of cable TV the agenda of some networks was purely political. I was reading online recently that sometimes even science seems to bow to people's preconceived notions. Or sometimes it doesn't tell people things because it thinks they don't want to hear it. We all hear of stories where one group, like the mentally ill, are treated unfairly in that coverage. But the opposite can be easily true. Not just for them, but for all groups really I mean. It's sad when trends like that become law. I remember on a local talk show in the late 80s they were interviewing an expert. And he said to a community activist who was campaigning to change the law, I don't agree with what you are trying to do. But I give you credit for at least doing your homework and knowing about the topic that you are working for. In the US, starting with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, policy shifts were guided by people's ignorance. I was watching the trend then and it had me concerned. And a more recent example of what happens when the public is uninformed is the January 6th Capitol riot. Where the people involved in that incident were in a panic from what they perceived as a horrible injustice requiring a revolt when in fact all their information was wrong and inaccurate. People's information is often wrong for the mentally ill, and a lot of other groups as I said. What we need is a better way of informing the public and informing voters. Which includes all the ways people try to remain informed. I am of an older generation so I mainly use TV and news broadcasts for that. Along with places of general discussion on TV and online. So maybe if there were some way to improve accuracy and accountability there. Including changes in the law and the requirement all sides of the issues are told. Told and told with fact checking like they do on some websites. Like I said, we have to address complex and difficult issues that way. While respecting people's rights and using the existing institutions, both media and legal, as they are. And for complex and difficult issues like mental illness and people who are developmentally disabled. Like I said I recently read online that the tendency towards violent crime is the about same for both groups, two to four times the rate of the general population, though the majority of each group isn't like that. But what we need for both is a commonsense approach and a better way to prevent those incidents. Preventing those incidents and addressing the conditions that those people live in that leads to that is obviously a better approach than the type of approach we were using decades ago and that some want to go back to now. And we live in a very different world than that time too.

EDIT: I was going to add to what I just said, that a lot of issues could be resolves for vulnerable groups like those for just making the two ends meet in the middle. Or I think parity might be the right word for that, from that story I already told. It should not be too easy to become a foster parent or too hard to become an adoptive parent. So why not have those standards the same? Or with confidentiality. I was talking to my former therapist about this with he subject of mental health treatment. Reporting requirements for child abuse and things like that were treated differently when I was a child, it was hard to do back then. But the severely mentally ill had to live under the same system they always did when it came to confidentiality for them. I suspect, and that was what we were discussing, that was my case. That something like that seems to have gone very wrong with my case that way. Equal treatment, equal access, commonsense reform, a rational approach.