Why is it that this causes a public outcry, but commitment for suicidal people doesn't?
Seriously, these are people who have been convicted of crimes, and are considered the lowliest people in society. (Including in prison). And you can see all kinds of newspaper articles, law review articles, random posts on message boards, etc that protest civil commitment for them. But when it comes to civil commitment for suicidal people, there isn't a peep of protest anywhere, except on this website.
When you say civil commitment, do you mean jailtime, etc?
Because anecdotally, Ive never heard of anyone protesting commitment of murderers and rapists unless there was a shadow of doubt in their guilt. The only protest Id agree to, is keeping sexual crimes under wraps as far as not releasing identities until proven guilty, and only then. If a person is innocent of a crime of that nature, and charged with it publicly, it can cause a schism in that persons life. A guy I worked with was charged with domestic assault on his girlfriend, a woman who was 4 times his size, and beat him into the hospital several times. He fought back once, and she called the cops on him. He came to work and they fired him on the spot for "Domestic Violence." Even though he wasnt convicted, they fired him simply because of the charge. And that was a regular guy. A person in the public eye, a news anchor... A musician, a politician, actor... Those people have so much more to lose. They can be 100% innocent, and a charge gets leveled against them and people who grew up with these public figures come out of the woodwork to say "When Billy was six, he pushed Sally out of a swing and if he did that then, well I can believe he raped a woman now. "
Unfortunately, suicidal people have even more to lose than those people. And they're already dealing with so much.
- Firstly, suicide is condemned by religion as not only murder, but in some cases a sin without the ability to be forgiven. Straight to hell, dont pass go, dont collect 200$. Obviously I'm discounting jihads and the like.
-Secondly, society views those poor individuals as broken tools. Tools that can be repaired and made to be useful again. Society doesnt care about me as a person, but my role as a skilled doctor means if I'm broken, I cant make society a better place through medicine. They just want Doctor so and so to fix the bum knee and keep on chugging along. Society, even while obviously abhorring communism or socialism, still expects everyone to maintain their roles.
-Thirdly, it doesnt matter what created your suicidal idealogy. People see their lives as gifts( not everyone, obviously) and as such feel threatened or intruded upon by those who do not see things the same way. These people must be corrected. Animals rarely commit suicide intentionally, and since fundamentally we are animals...that instinct remains. Even if you're armless and legless, people will see your working remainder as a gift. Some see that because of religion, or twisted world views, but the reality is a rat without back legs will be the first one to die when his nest runs from the cat. He is expected to fight to his death, or run. But never suicide.
-Finally, morally murderers, rapists...etc, they commit the worst crimes by societies standards, but we seperate them and keep them harm free until they die. Thats their punishment. Some people see their crimes and try to kill themselves, only to end up in a padded cell for years just so someone in the wardens office can one day determine their death date. We protest capital punishment on religious grounds, physical grounds, or financial grounds. I dont believe in life in prison, I believe if you kill...a 7.62x39mm will be cheaper than me paying taxes to keep you alive for 30 years. Some say, killing a killer, leaves the same number of killers in the world. That rapists deserve to die, etc.
The reality is, death is an unknown, and subconciously all that we do is an attempt to escape death. Even having children, we pass on our genes so that we dont truly die. Anyone who wants to die, is wrong and must be forced to see that. As long as we think with our religious ideals, our fears, and our instincts...we wont become any better as a society.
"We need a new ideology with the core values of reason, honesty, science and secular progress over the older traditions of religion, superstition and dogmatic faith that have long defined humanity. We will never be free to progress and advance until the last stone from the last church is cast down onto the last priest. And every equivalent."
