Sitting around the Old Cracker Barrel, Talking

 Dealing with Mental Health Issues

Many of America’s inner cities have a homelessness crisis. China has a similar problem but it’s called “the Floating Population**” and they keep them off the streets of major cities. They’re invisible to tourists but they cause problems for the Public Security Bureau because they fall well outside of the ‘social scoring’ and traditional public order system.
So both the US and China have homelessness problems. In the US, it’s a combination of people who have problems with (a) drug addiction, (b) mental health issues, (c) chronically unemployable. Not the same problem as the Chinese. Not precisely. In China, the numbers are close to 3/4 of the population of the USA.

**China’s internal migratory population (both inter- and intra-provincial) exceeds 250 million people. Within that population are those without household registration (流动人口), petty criminals, Chinese versions of gypsies, and many of the functional insane.

There are homeless task forces in every major city. What do we do about it? How do we cope with it? Not feeding them and offering benefits would be a start, but it’s not a solution. BRM’s Blog brought up the Baker Act (Florida) the other day. It’s worth reviewing both what BRM wrote and the comments (which include some of you).

One solution is to change the law to allow for a round up and triage system. Drug addicts are dried out and are put into a form of rehab, using every major technique known to mainstream them again. The chronically unemployable are taught skills that they might use and are gradually weaned from benefit programs as they enter the workforce – to the extent that we can do it. The third group is the mentally ill. Go back up to BRM’s blog link one more time.

Under the current political environment these things would likely be considered to be proof of mental illness:

  • Owning a firearm
  • Voting Republican (or anything but Democrat) 
  • Being a veteran
  • Flying a Gadsen Flag
  • Making an OK hand signal
  • Believing in God
Thus trust in the system is essentially impossible.

Now the Mail


Misc.

C W Swanson – Excellent. Your in! Now, have fun with the Winter weather.

I moved in ten months ago…

Fredd Wags the Dog – ‘Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.’ We’ve heard that before, and it clearly worked for Barry Obama’s re-election; even when unemployment was over 7% (which he then had the OMB fudge the numbers so that they came in at under 7% right before the election). 
The election is around a year away, and the economy shows no real signs of tanking before then. With everything going well economically, the Democrats have absolutely nothing to entice people to vote for them. Other than Trump is evil and should be impeached (although they will not cast ther vote for that eventuality, since that would doom their own re-election chances in Trumpian districts).
I see absolutely no chance of the electorate throwing the dice and changing horses in the middle of the stream. It also seems clear that the more slime they try to taint Trump with, the more it slops all over themselves. 

The donkeys believe if they can throw enough mud on President Trump that people will believe their lies, with media shills to carry the message. They hope that we will go full communist.

Vexing Health Issues (Part One)

NOTE: Full disclosure, I am pro-vaccinations. I don’t rule out that in some cases they may cause harm, but the diseases are much worse than the cures. There are a lot of people including friends of mine who are not. Many of those people fear a vaccination conspiracy. I have seen no sign that it is the case. Yes there are articles out there, but I am unconvinced.
Old NFO – Herd immunity IS a thing. When you have a bunch of anti-vaxxers out there, that immunity goes away. Look at the measles epidemics we’ve seen just this year. What if those were smallpox? Or something even worse. Yes, I’m a proponent of vaccinations! I grew up seeing people in iron lungs from polio. I don’t want a repeat of that. Re Ebola. Lock them down. There are not enough beds in the entire US to handle even a dozen infected people!!! The CDC, WHO, and others, including JHU have come out with alerts to that effect.

I agree 100%, my friend. On all counts.

DRJIM – I’m with NFO. We spent decades, and untold wealth, to eradicate common diseases within our borders. Now a few misinformed people are making enough noise to get others to follow them “For The Children”.

Sheesh..,..that’s why we did this in the first place.

As the old saying goes…”Some people would bitch if you hung ’em with a new rope…”

There are a lot of viruses out there that were disfiguring and killing people for millennia. We stopped that with mass inoculations. Infected vectors from third world s-holes arrived after we stopped and started epidemics. The message was delivered loud and clear.

LSP – Ah, the old vax dilemma. They’ve worked well enough for me, no polio, and less well for others. That in mind, what fresh hell are our overlords concocting? Surely they wouldn’t be evil enough to run freakish experiments on the gen. pop. through vaccinations.

Paranoid perhaps, but still. As for ebola, BUILD THE DAM WALL.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re NOT out to get you.

WSF – Vaccines? Who determines the quality? I’ve written about my son and multiple inoculations at an early age. My son, the medic, said he seldom saw any health professionals reading the information sheets, let alone advising recipients of possible side effects.

IMO, an area of medicine gone sloppy and careless. 

I’m not a virologist or an MD of any sort. I think that we look at cause and effect and try to deal with the outliers. For the greater part, we have eliminated a dozen critically serious plagues.

Beans – Lesse… No vaccines and Polio, diptheria and a thousand other hells come back in vogue, or Vaccines and the plagues that killed people right and left, crippled and destroyed families, all stop? I’ll take Vaccines for a 1000, Alex.
Vaccines. Totally. VACCINES!!! 
As a recent sufferer of shingles, as in my doc saying “That’s the Worst case of shingles I’ve ever seen!” I would kick myself hard for not getting the vaccine, but my frickin head hurts too much to move much, like to kick myself.
Vaccines have, truly, saved whole generations, whole populations, whole societies. Anyone who’s ever seen a pre-diptheria vaccine graveyard and seen the children’s graves, everywhere, due to diptheria, and isn’t pro-vaccine is just wrong in the head.
Are vaccines painful? Yes. Are they sometimes ineffective? Yes. Are there possibly some issues with them? Maybe. Is it worth allowing back the killers of children (seriously, making it past 13 was difficult back in the day) to flourish and rip our world apart again because of issues brought up by people who also support vaginal eggs as a therapy, well… VACCINES!!!!!
What’s the safe distance to be around someone who doesn’t have immunity? About as far as you can shoot. 
To summarize, VACCINES!!!!!

Shingles is no joke. I had chicken pox twice. Once as a child, once as an adult (never was vaccinated for it). Shingles is like adult chicken pox with Biblical proportions.  And adult chicken pox is pretty damned horrible.

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20 COMMENTS

  2. There will always be some folks who can't make it in society due to mental illness or sheer cussedness and wind up on the streets (or in the woods, whatever) . Minimizing it seems like something to try and do, though. Otherwise we wind up like Cali, with Calcutta-level shantytowns of filth, violence, and disease surrounding our cities.

    Not encouraging them with idiotic laws is a good first step.

    I'd also like to address the very large segment of Homeless comprised of Junkies, though. We seriously need to stop facilitating and encouraging their lifestyles. We have people (including some especially moronic doctors) all around the country suggesting we should buy "good" heroin, clean needles and provide "safe" (I was not aware injecting heroin is ever "safe") spaces for the Junkies to shoot up. This is not a good plan. Making the Government every Junkie's pusher on the Tax Dollar is good for the Government (for a while, anyway) and nobody else.

    I am also dead set against the insane NarCan program we are running in this country, where our EMT personnel, instead of saving lives of accident victims and sufferers of medical emergencies like they signed up for, spend all their time going around the Junkie OD circuit in their towns, reviving the same people daily or weekly. Here in Rhode Island, home of the (formerly) Independent Man, there is now a gigantic PSA campaign telling every citizen they should buy and carry NarCan to "help combat the opioid crisis". It's madness.

    Okay. I am not a nice man, I suppose. I am very callous. Maybe my ideas are plain wrong, but they're all I have.

    It seems to me that nobody could possibly ever think that injecting heroin into their body is a good idea, or healthy, or safe, or anything other than the first step in a gradual, almost inevitable suicide. I mean, the word is out, right? We teach kids to avoid this shit in schools? Everybody hears all the stories of the rich, famous, popular, Hollywood types that kill themselves this way, with all the advantages to survival they have?

    I understand that people do idiotic things, and that a second chance is not a bad thing to give.

    But I can't help but think that we should give out EMTs tattoo guns, and when they NarCan somebody, they should draw an "X" on them. When they have 3 "X" es, no more OD revivals on the public dollar.

    I mean… it seems to me that the "opioid crisis" is self-solving, if we just stop spending tax money (shitloads of it) on keeping Junkies alive and helping them remain Junkies. Heroin's a death sentence. Give them a second chance, and if they persist, just let them get on with killing themselves.

    Or maybe I'm just too cruel. IDK.
    -Kle.

  3. Solving mental health issues in America, simple: 1) enact national concealed weapons carry laws, and 2) enact national vagrancy laws.

    I've written on this today, maybe stop by and check it out, LL. I'll bet you will not take a single issue with my arguments therein.

  4. In Portland they blame homelessness on unaffordable housing, as if the homeless (excuse me, the "unhoused") can afford $1000 for rent but not $1500.

    Regarding incarcerating the mentally ill, that worked great in the Soviet Union. Since you had to be crazy to be a dissident, all dissidents were automatically crazy!

    Look for the definition of "terrorism" to be broadened.

    Don in Oregon

  5. Don in Oregon: you have to be given a certain amount of latitude as an Oregonian; madness is all around you, and you can't be blamed for a little bit of it rubbing off on you. I am a recovering Oregonian, and know this to be true.

    In virtually all societies since the invention of society, mentally impaired folk have been isolated from polite society. Either through stoning (the old school method), burning at the stake (witches, and mad folk alike), committing them to nut houses (a bit more civilized), or incarceration (yes, the Soviets tuned that method to a science), it has been for better or worse a benefit to the greater good to limit the damage that their madness inflicts on those around them.

    Lately, however, we have allowed the mad to freely live among the sane, without judgement as to who is or is not mad. And the mad inflict terrible damage to the sane. How is that civilized? It's not.

    I say incarceration of the mentally ill is OK with me, it's just who determines who is mad and who is sane will always be the rub.

  7. Fredd:

    Not everyone who lives in Oregon lives in Portland. In the part of Oregon in which I live, most of the people are not insane/libtards.

    Paul L. Quandt

  8. Paul L. Quandt: I hailed from Eugene (2nd largest city), where madness rules. Salem (3rd largest city) and Portland (the Madness Capital of Oregon) are lousy with mad people. That comprises about 90% of the population of Oregon.

    Go out to the boonies, and talk to sane people in Prineville, Klamath Falls, Medford, Junction City, and yes; sanity rules. But nobody lives in those rural enclaves except people who cling to their guns and their bibles.

    I am simply assigning percentages, and the percentage of madness in the Oregon population is huge. Now, much like the state I current reside (Illinois), if you look at simple square inches of dirt, most of Oregon is Red State sanity. And Illinois is the same; almost all the dirt in Illinois is sane, but those who inhabit those blue areas are of enormous population, the madness rules.

    Paul, you and I live in similar areas; the metro areas are insane, and where you and I live, people are reasonable (sane).

  9. Fredd-
    And the mad rule, courtesy of the Warren court, Baker vs Carr, Reynolds vs Simms. Those cases destroyed rural representation of the counties, placing overwhelming political pull in the cities.
    They assigned State Senators to be based on population, as the State Representatives had always been, giving utter dominance to the cities, so Portland rules Oregon, Denver rules Colorado, etc. Warren described them as the most important cases of his tenure. This is exactly the result desired by those who would eliminate the electoral college, save for having cities rules states, they seek to have a few states rule the nation.

  11. Have the "homeless" been asked if they like living the way they do? Why do we assume they are desperate and unhappy people because we would be in their circumstances?

  12. I'm 100% in favor of people who just want to drop out of society being left alone, as long as they keep to themselves, maintain reasonable health and hygiene, and don't hurt anybody else.

    I've met quite a few folks over the years who can take care of themselves fine, and just don't want to deal with the world. I rather admire them, actually.

    -Kle.

  13. Have you seen the movie "The King of Hearts"?.
    youtube.com/watch?v=hYSXbB1IM6A
    That's what it feels like these days.
    Remember the book "None Dare Call it Treason"?
    Update, "None Dare Call it Madness".

  14. Fredd: You and I have something else ( sort of ) in common- You moved from Oregon to Illinois and I moved from Illinois to Oregon.

    Paul

  16. I like putting tattoo needles in NarCan that's used for dumb-assed OD'ers. One tattoo, or maybe a microchip – 1 free escape from death. After that, well, let them die. Anyone who takes illegal drugs is basically playing Russian Roulette, or some other sick game of Maybe Suicide. Screw them. Too much resources being spent on people who want to die.

    Now, NarCan for legitimate overdosers? Wait, there are legitimate OD's? Yes. I know a person who's on levels of pain management drugs. Who then had a brain bleeed. Which causes the person's kidneys to occasionally act up, which means the person can OD on prescribed meds. Narcan good. Legitimate use. Good.

    Dirt bag use? Screw em. They choose to drop out of society, why not just one more push into that permanent darkness? Useless wastes of human flesh. If they can't learn from one OD that they need to change their life choices, then screw them all. Preferably far away from me, so the parts the vultures drop won't land on me or my car.

  17. Kle, those aren't the ones pooping on the streets. There's a difference between Hobos (people who choose to live life on the road) and others who choose to live alone, and vagrants (street poopers, druggies, etc.)

  19. And just down the road from Medford is Ashland, which has turned into Little Berkeley, overrun with Bay Area refugees who can't figure out cause and effect, so they're creating the same sort of mess they fled from.

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