Thursday, June 8th, 2006
Is this really a good idea?
I know that John Aravosis over at AMERICAblog has already touched on this, but I just wanted to get my two cents in. MSRNC and the Washington Post are both reporting that some psychologists are considering draft guidelines declaring extreme pathological bias as a mental illness.
Rebellious Peasant’s T. Harris makes an excellent point about the pros and cons of the idea, but I can’t help but worry that, should the draft guidelines be accepted, they will quickly be abused by the political establishment against their pet scapegoats. Just look at the rhetoric of the right wing today. Michael Savage regularly calls liberalism "a mental disorder," even devoting a book-length screed to the idea - this just feeds his fantasies. One can easily imagine a scenario where one of his fellow travellers in a position of power within the Republican party, say Tom DeLay, gets legislation passed having liberals committed to mental institutions for "pathological anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-Capitalist biases." And I’m sure Stalin would be laughing his ass off from hell watching the whole thing go down.
This doesn’t help conservatives, either, because the abuses can run both ways. If I’m "pathologically biased against conservatives, etc." because I dare to hold opinions the GOP doesn’t like, then the bozo who erected this billboard
could just as easily be declared "pathologically biased against non-Christians."
So no, I don’t think that this is a good idea.
(See original post on the old blog here - originally posted Dec. 12, 2005 5:34 AM)
