I found this article on a blog and found it very interesting. The subject involves a potential bill which would be pushed by Senator Bill Frist. The bill would label "political paranoia" as a medical illness which you could be screened and treated, per federal law...

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It’s not the stolen election or the war crimes committed in my name. It’s not the fact Bush is a liar and a criminal. It’s not the Strausscons in the White House and the Pentagon, plotting multiple wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. It’s not Congress, sold out to neolibs, multinational corporations, and Wall Street loan sharks.

It’s me.

I’m suffering from “political paranoia” and need Paxil, a prescription drug for the treatment of anxiety and depression. It’s not the 100,000 dead killed by my government in Iraq. It’s not torture or loose talk of nuking enemies. It is a serotonin imbalance in my brain. I suffer from any number of possible maladies-depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (thus writing this blog every day), and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I suffer from mental illness and need help.

Congress may come to the rescue-and soon.

“When the 109th Congress convenes in Washington in January, Senator Bill Frist, the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928, plans to file a bill that would define ‘political paranoia’ as a mental disorder, paving the way for individuals who suffer from paranoid delusions regarding voter fraud, political persecution and FBI surveillance to receive Medicare reimbursement for any psychiatric treatment they receive,” writes Hermione Slatkin, Medical Correspondent for the Swift Report. “Rick Smith, a spokesman for Senator Frist, says that the measure has a good chance of passing-something that can only help a portion of the population that is suffering significant distress.”

“If you’re still convinced that President Bush won the election because Republicans figured out a way to hack into electronic voting machines, you’ve obviously got a problem,” says Smith. “If we can figure out a way to ease your suffering by getting you into therapy and onto medication, that’s something that we hope the entire 109th Congress will support.”

Characterizing political dissent as a form of mental illness is the hallmark of authoritarian government. In China, for instance, forensic psychiatrists label dissent “political lunacy” (see Jacob Sullum, Head Games: What are the rules for defining mental illness?) and in Soviet Russia political dissenters were routinely cosigned to mental hospitals. Nowadays, with modern pharmacology, mental hospitals are no longer required-the mental hospital is internalized through chemical intervention.

No need for FEMA camps or “preventive detention” when we have a “medical armamentarium” of serotonin uptake inhibitors. All that is needed now is for Frist and the Republicans to devise a law defining “political paranoia” and determining that “political paranoiacs” are a threat to society.

You will take your Paxil-or something far more debilitating-and by court order. Recall Bush’s effort to screen the entire population for mental illness, i.e., the New Freedom Initiative. Bush’s commission found that “despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed” and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for “consumers of all ages.” Naturally, Frist and the Republicans are mostly concerned about the “political paranoia” form of mental illness, as the above news item indicates.

As a “consumer,” is it possible I am suffering from “political paranoia.” or is the whole thing a product of my feverish imagination and the result of reading too many news items on the web?

Finally, note that I could not find mention of Frist and the classification of “political paranoia” after a lengthy Google news search. Mention of it only appeared on the Swift Report website. Rick Smith’s above quote returned no results. Of course, this does not mean that Bill Frist and the Republicans do not consider the opposition-including more than a few Democrats-as mental cases and tinfoil hatters. Rush Limbaugh calls us nutters every day and millions of gullible Americans take what he says as gospel.

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