A critical
part of the multifaceted approach needed to solve this nation’s gun
violence—particularly school shootings—is greater emphasis on mental health
care.
Unfortunately,
The National Review could not resist
distorting the facts and demonizing those with whom they disagree. In a recent
editorial the magazine wrote, “The common thread in these tragedies is not the
killer’s choice of weapons, but his unhinged state of mind.” That is true,
right on National Review! It would sound as if the influential
conservative magazine is throwing its editorial weight behind expanding and
improving mental health care.
Unfortunately that’s not the case.
The magazine
could not resist lambasting liberals. The next sentence reads, “Liberals pushed
the ‘deinstitutionalization’ movement of the 1960s that made it almost
impossible to keep mentally ill people safely locked up.” The National Review is distorting the facts.
Large state and federal run mental health facilities existed well into the
1980s.
Both liberals and conservatives
played roles in closing mental health facilities—a policy that has had led to
the plummeting of mental health care.
New Jersey
and Virginia, the two states I am familiar with, have closed mental health
hospitals with disastrous results. Both states have privatized mental health
care and the result has been a marked decline in the quality and amount of
mental health treatment.
What a shame
a major national magazine couldn’t resist trying to score points on the bodies
of students, staff, and faculty.
In the final
analysis, we don’t need to waste time and energy arguing whose fault it is that
our mental health care system is underfunded and so woefully inadequate.
We need to stop blaming each other
for past mistakes and turn our attention to the gun violence crisis.
We need
liberals and conservatives to stop pointing fingers at each other and come
together in the common cause of ending the epidemic of school shootings.
No comments:
Post a Comment