In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On May 02 2014 16:42 Crushinator wrote: This is the problem in general with the more conservative posters in here, it is very difficult to discern their actual stances and arguments. When other posters do infer positions and arguments they are then refuted as strawmen. I'm not sure if this is a conscious effort or just an unconscious habit picked up from moving in those circles, but it does make the discussion very confusing.
If you're referring to me it's a professional / academic habit. If someone is making a proposal or presenting a thesis I get to question / criticize it while they defend it. What my stance is going in is irrelevant, if they make good arguments and are persuasive I'm going to agree with what they are saying, at least to some meaningful extent.
Since it's a warm day I thought I would post some highlights from Republicans on climate change.
I mean why look around you when this book here has the answer. I mean if the Bible says we can't/won't destroy earth we must be good right...?
I disagree with climate change deniers in general but seeing statements like those from elected officials leaves me disturbed and disappointed. How deep must the ignorance run in order for statements like those to seem like reasonable things to say.
The vast majority of people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Statistically they're actually more likely to be victims of violence. But a small subset of that population, individuals who can no longer tell the difference between what's real and what's not, can be prone to violent acts.
And an uneasy fact has emerged from the two dozen mass shootings in this country over the past decade: The majority of the people pulling the trigger have been severely mentally ill and not receiving treatment.
After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School a year and a half ago, Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican from Pennsylvania, sought to change the way those with serious mental illness are handled.
Murphy drafted a bill last year to lower the standard by which seriously mentally ill people may be forced into treatment. He's been met with fierce opposition. Some mental health groups fear people's civil liberties will be violated. Others say it will be a return to state-run insane asylums.
Murphy, a practicing psychologist, is frustrated.
"I've got the pictures on my table over there of kids who died at Sandy Hook and I promised those parents I was going to do something. Because the Adam Lanzas of the world and the other people who have nowhere to go, who have not gotten treatment, who have not gotten a diagnosis, are out there dying with their rights on. Are you kidding me?"
The nuts and bolts of this: Severely mentally ill people, in the vast majority of states, can only be confined to treatment — usually about five days — if they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. But some states also have a lower standard — something called a "need for treatment."
That means a person can be court-ordered to get counseling and stay on medication.
Murphy's bill provides financial incentives for all states to adopt this lower standard. And it eliminates a quirky Medicaid rule that, if passed, could create more inpatient bed space.
Not sure if it's the right way to go, but definitely an area that needs attention. Also, when it comes to forcing the mentally ill to receive treatment, we kind of already are:
The vast majority of people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Statistically they're actually more likely to be victims of violence. But a small subset of that population, individuals who can no longer tell the difference between what's real and what's not, can be prone to violent acts.
And an uneasy fact has emerged from the two dozen mass shootings in this country over the past decade: The majority of the people pulling the trigger have been severely mentally ill and not receiving treatment.
After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School a year and a half ago, Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican from Pennsylvania, sought to change the way those with serious mental illness are handled.
Murphy drafted a bill last year to lower the standard by which seriously mentally ill people may be forced into treatment. He's been met with fierce opposition. Some mental health groups fear people's civil liberties will be violated. Others say it will be a return to state-run insane asylums.
Murphy, a practicing psychologist, is frustrated.
"I've got the pictures on my table over there of kids who died at Sandy Hook and I promised those parents I was going to do something. Because the Adam Lanzas of the world and the other people who have nowhere to go, who have not gotten treatment, who have not gotten a diagnosis, are out there dying with their rights on. Are you kidding me?"
The nuts and bolts of this: Severely mentally ill people, in the vast majority of states, can only be confined to treatment — usually about five days — if they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. But some states also have a lower standard — something called a "need for treatment."
That means a person can be court-ordered to get counseling and stay on medication.
Murphy's bill provides financial incentives for all states to adopt this lower standard. And it eliminates a quirky Medicaid rule that, if passed, could create more inpatient bed space.
Not sure if it's the right way to go, but definitely an area that needs attention. Also, when it comes to forcing the mentally ill to receive treatment, we kind of already are:
"The nuts and bolts of this" probably not the best choice of words given the topic...
You might be interested to find out for almost every case where the information was released in the last couple decades of school shootings, the shooter was on mood-altering medication. (Source) Most if not all were ones that carried express warnings about their lack of information on the effect the drugs had on people under 18.
How crazy that is all legal, but marijuana is in O'Reilly's cross-hairs?
Mental health certainly needs more attention/funding/action in this country especially for our vets.
The vast majority of people with mental illness are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Statistically they're actually more likely to be victims of violence. But a small subset of that population, individuals who can no longer tell the difference between what's real and what's not, can be prone to violent acts.
And an uneasy fact has emerged from the two dozen mass shootings in this country over the past decade: The majority of the people pulling the trigger have been severely mentally ill and not receiving treatment.
After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School a year and a half ago, Rep. Tim Murphy, a Republican from Pennsylvania, sought to change the way those with serious mental illness are handled.
Murphy drafted a bill last year to lower the standard by which seriously mentally ill people may be forced into treatment. He's been met with fierce opposition. Some mental health groups fear people's civil liberties will be violated. Others say it will be a return to state-run insane asylums.
Murphy, a practicing psychologist, is frustrated.
"I've got the pictures on my table over there of kids who died at Sandy Hook and I promised those parents I was going to do something. Because the Adam Lanzas of the world and the other people who have nowhere to go, who have not gotten treatment, who have not gotten a diagnosis, are out there dying with their rights on. Are you kidding me?"
The nuts and bolts of this: Severely mentally ill people, in the vast majority of states, can only be confined to treatment — usually about five days — if they are an imminent danger to themselves or others. But some states also have a lower standard — something called a "need for treatment."
That means a person can be court-ordered to get counseling and stay on medication.
Murphy's bill provides financial incentives for all states to adopt this lower standard. And it eliminates a quirky Medicaid rule that, if passed, could create more inpatient bed space.
Not sure if it's the right way to go, but definitely an area that needs attention. Also, when it comes to forcing the mentally ill to receive treatment, we kind of already are:
"The nuts and bolts of this" probably not the best choice of words given the topic...
You might be interested to find out for almost every case where the information was released in the last couple decades of school shootings, the shooter was on mood-altering medication. (Source) Most if not all were ones that carried express warnings about their lack of information on the effect the drugs had on people under 18.
How crazy that is all legal, but marijuana is in O'Reilly's cross-hairs?
Mental health certainly needs more attention/funding/action in this country especially for our vets.
Not following... are you claiming that the medication caused the shooting? If so, do you have any proof of that?
He doesn't need to claim that the medication caused shootings in order to raise concerns over the coincidence of the taking of mood altering psychotropics and violence in young adults.
On May 03 2014 04:50 farvacola wrote: He doesn't need to claim that the medication caused shootings in order to raise concerns over the coincidence of the taking of mood altering psychotropics and violence in young adults.
Yes I think he does - unless you are abusing, you aren't taking prescription drugs without legitimate reason. Pointing out the correlation therefore isn't relevant on its own. What's the purpose of pointing out a correlation if there's no causation?
we are dealing with a handful of cases with strongly collinear factors in medication + mental problems. for instance, the drug stats would have less of an impression if it was known that 90% of people diagnosed with mental problems, (i.e. actually going to a professional and getting the diagnosis) is assigned some medication for some period of time.
On May 03 2014 04:50 farvacola wrote: He doesn't need to claim that the medication caused shootings in order to raise concerns over the coincidence of the taking of mood altering psychotropics and violence in young adults.
Yes I think he does - unless you are abusing, you aren't taking prescription drugs without legitimate reason. Pointing out the correlation therefore isn't relevant on its own. What's the purpose of pointing out a correlation if there's no causation?
You would point out correlation as a starting point to find causation. Finding very strong correlation coupled with fact that mood alterating drugs can cause the opposite of its intended effect leads to the plausible hypothesis that they were a contributing factor. Ofcourse the fact that mood altering drugs are often prescribed to troubled individuals and school shooter tend to be troubled would be another explanation.
The central pillar of Barack Obama's climate change agenda has come under a new line of co-ordinated attack from influential lobbying networks involving Republican politicians and big business.
The Guardian has learned that the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a free market group of state legislators funded in part by coal and oil companies such as Peabody Energy and Koch Industries, launched a much broader style of campaigning in 2014 to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Documents obtained by the Guardian offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Alec as the organisation tried to drum up opposition from coal, oil and electricity industry groups and state officials.
The documents showed Alec adopting a new tactic of encouraging state attorney generals to bring lawsuits against the new EPA regulations – and so sink the emissions controls before they come into effect. Alec also encouraged legislators to lobby attorney generals and governors in other states on the EPA rules, the documents showed.
Meanwhile, Alec legislators introduced about a dozen anti-EPA bills in states including Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Virginia.
Alec is expected to reassess its strategy against the EPA rules on 2 May during a meeting of its energy and environment taskforce in Kansas city. Alec also organised a field trip to a coal-fired power plant during the meeting, according to the agenda posted on the Alec website.
Do you know how antidepressors word Johnny ? Hint : nobody's sure. Source : the paper un my box, which also states that they can have the opposite of the intended effect. Also trying to understand whatever your interlecutor is saying should come before saying whatever sentence you think contradicts him. And that's also good for analytic philosophers :p
You can't really bash o'reily for having pot in his cross hairs when all of the liberal left is trying to invent imaginary boogymen in guns. Its literaly the same Hippocratic philosophy trying to use the death of children and others in mass shootings to advance your politics when we all have the information in front of us that mental health is the real issue and at the very least needs more attention form everyone.
There was a really smart kid in Minnesota that had a ton of bomb making materials, the expertise to make them, and a plan to muder as many people as he physically could. What should scare you is that there isn't anything anyone could do to stop him before he started preparing to commit a crime.
The mentally ill are going to prison instead of asylums. Address that point he presented evidence for please.
On May 03 2014 04:50 farvacola wrote: He doesn't need to claim that the medication caused shootings in order to raise concerns over the coincidence of the taking of mood altering psychotropics and violence in young adults.
Yes I think he does - unless you are abusing, you aren't taking prescription drugs without legitimate reason. Pointing out the correlation therefore isn't relevant on its own. What's the purpose of pointing out a correlation if there's no causation?
It would be quite a tall order to "prove" without a doubt that medications "caused" mass shootings. The exact effects of mood altering medications are little understood, and vary wildly between individuals. I've been put on medications following a suicide attempt and experienced extreme mania on them. I also had, for the first time in my life, homicidal thoughts that I almost acted upon.
It's certainly an area that doesn't receive enough research, considering how liberally these drugs are prescribed these days. If they're proposing to force the mentally ill to be incarcerated and take meds, then I think they have a greater responsibility to prove causation in regards to untreated mental illness and mass shootings, and they must clearly establish that their "treatment" does not actually make the patient more prone to violence.
Johhny isn't advocating that the medications caused the shootings green horizon is doing that. Johhny is saying that the mentaly ill are the ones that are causeing the mass shootings. He is further saying that they don't get treatment beacuse they only become violence when their judgement becomes impaired enough that they don't want treatment.
There isn't much research on what putting new chemicals in your brain does, but thats as much of a knock on the people who want to legalize drugs and at the same time ilegalize them. saying those things are wrong doesn't really change anything it just makes things more wrong.
On May 03 2014 04:50 farvacola wrote: He doesn't need to claim that the medication caused shootings in order to raise concerns over the coincidence of the taking of mood altering psychotropics and violence in young adults.
Yes I think he does - unless you are abusing, you aren't taking prescription drugs without legitimate reason. Pointing out the correlation therefore isn't relevant on its own. What's the purpose of pointing out a correlation if there's no causation?
That's an awfully high correlation to say it doesn't warrant a bit of attention? Pretty short list beyond the drugs and the most rudimentary fact of the cases (at school, used a weapon, etc...) that they all have in common with very, very, few exclusions. I'm not suggesting there is a cause and effect relationship. What I am suggesting is that the medication is a clear indication of something these people have in common. We as a nation should be looking closer not just into the medication itself but the entire treatment process that results in children being prescribed (and practically force fed by some parents) these clearly and undeniably dangerous medications long before we deem the same children capable of responsibly consuming something as notably less dangerous like cannabis or something like alcohol which is comparably dangerous but legal without prescription. Our drug policies from womb to tomb and from aspirin to PCP are ridiculous and irresponsible.
This is yet another place the scientifically illiterate stand in the way
It doesn't seem like you are very up to date on whats going on in the medical community regarding stimulants and mood-altering drugs being prescribed to, and abused by children. You may want to read up before making rash determinations on what is or isn't relevant to mention.
As a side note: It didn't take long to get your arguments sounding like someone from your dreaded HuffingtonPost... Source
On May 03 2014 05:45 Sermokala wrote: Johhny isn't advocating that the medications caused the shootings green horizon is doing that. Johhny is saying that the mentaly ill are the ones that are causeing the mass shootings. He is further saying that they don't get treatment beacuse they only become violence when their judgement becomes impaired enough that they don't want treatment.
There isn't much research on what putting new chemicals in your brain does, but thats as much of a knock on the people who want to legalize drugs and at the same time ilegalize them. saying those things are wrong doesn't really change anything it just makes things more wrong.
I take those drugs volontarily you know... That graph Johnny posted is in fact the HUGE scandal in term of correlation-causation btw.
On May 03 2014 05:45 Sermokala wrote: Johhny isn't advocating that the medications caused the shootings green horizon is doing that. Johhny is saying that the mentaly ill are the ones that are causeing the mass shootings. He is further saying that they don't get treatment beacuse they only become violence when their judgement becomes impaired enough that they don't want treatment.
There isn't much research on what putting new chemicals in your brain does, but thats as much of a knock on the people who want to legalize drugs and at the same time ilegalize them. saying those things are wrong doesn't really change anything it just makes things more wrong.
I'm aware that's what Johnny was saying, sorry if my response was unclear. I'm trying to say that his demand for proof of causation is unreasonable, considering that causation is not even understood in regards to the illnesses the drugs are supposed to be treating. The unintended consequences must be even less understood. But the evidence of the rise of psychotropic medication prescriptions alongside mass shootings, as well as the fact that many of the shooters were on medication, should at least give us pause. Yet it seems the opposite is being urged, that until we medicate more aggressively, then shootings will increase.
On May 03 2014 05:34 Sermokala wrote: You can't really bash o'reily for having pot in his cross hairs when all of the liberal left is trying to invent imaginary boogymen in guns. Its literaly the same Hippocratic philosophy trying to use the death of children and others in mass shootings to advance your politics when we all have the information in front of us that mental health is the real issue and at the very least needs more attention form everyone.
There was a really smart kid in Minnesota that had a ton of bomb making materials, the expertise to make them, and a plan to muder as many people as he physically could. What should scare you is that there isn't anything anyone could do to stop him before he started preparing to commit a crime.
The mentally ill are going to prison instead of asylums. Address that point he presented evidence for please.
The "liberal left" doesn't have to invent "boogeymen for guns". Firearm injury and death are topics of epidemiological study and the data necessitates that changes be made to firearm ownership and prevalence in the US. Here's one of many peer reviewed studies on the matter. Feel free to counter with your own peer reviewed evidence to the contrary:
Repeal of the concealed weapons law and its impact on gun-related injuries and deaths. BACKGROUND: Senate Bill 1108 (SB-1108) allows adult citizens to carry concealed weapons without a permit and without completion of a training course. It is unclear whether the law creates a "deterrent factor" to criminals or whether it escalates gun-related violence. We hypothesized that the enactment of SB-1108 resulted in an increase in gun-related injuries and deaths (GRIDs) in southern Arizona.
METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study spanning 24 months before (prelaw) and after (postlaw) SB-1108. We collected injury and death data and overall crime and accident trends. Injured patients were dichotomized based on whether their injuries were intentional (iGRIDs) or accidental (aGRIDs). The primary outcome was any GRID. To determine proportional differences in GRIDs between the two periods, we performed χ analyses. For each subgroup, we calculated relative risk (RR).
RESULTS: The number of national and state background checks for firearms purchases increased in the postlaw period (national and state p < 0.001); that increase was proportionately reflected in a relative increase in state firearm purchase in the postlaw period (1.50% prelaw vs. 1.59% postlaw, p < 0.001). Overall, victims of events potentially involving guns had an 11% increased risk of being injured or killed by a firearm (p = 0.036) The proportion of iGRIDs to overall city violent crime remained the same during the two periods (9.74% prelaw vs. 10.36% postlaw; RR, 1.06; 95% confidence interval, 0.96-1.17). However, in the postlaw period, the proportion of gun-related homicides increased by 27% after SB-1108 (RR, 1.27; 95% confidence interval, 1.02-1.58).
CONCLUSION: Both nationally and statewide, firearm purchases increased after the passage of SB-1108. Although the proportion of iGRIDs to overall city violent crime remained the same, the proportion of gun-related homicides increased. Liberalization of gun access is associated with an increase in fatalities from guns.
LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Epidemiologic study, level III.
Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery 2014 Mar;76(3):569-74
On May 03 2014 05:45 Sermokala wrote: Johhny isn't advocating that the medications caused the shootings green horizon is doing that. Johhny is saying that the mentaly ill are the ones that are causeing the mass shootings. He is further saying that they don't get treatment beacuse they only become violence when their judgement becomes impaired enough that they don't want treatment.
There isn't much research on what putting new chemicals in your brain does, but thats as much of a knock on the people who want to legalize drugs and at the same time ilegalize them. saying those things are wrong doesn't really change anything it just makes things more wrong.
I take those drugs volontarily you know... That graph Johnny posted is in fact the HUGE scandal in term of correlation-causation btw.
And I take prozac voluntarily as well. But it isn't You or me really choseing what we're putting in our bodies. we're suppose to be able to trust doctors to tell us what we need.
The graph is really simple though. it shows a clear correlation inbetween mentally ill getting out of asylums where they were before and mentaly ill people going into jail at a higher rate at the same time. His argument was that reintroducing asylums or something like it where the mentaly ill get help instead of being put into jail was preferable to what was going on acording to the data (that more mentaly ill people were going to jail.
IT isn't that having asylums would lower the amount of mentally ill in jails it would just be that the mentaly ill would get treatment instead of going to jail.