This is my first post at this group and I am not nearly as conversant
with Thomas Szasz's writings as are most (it appears) of the posters
here. In fact I am only now reading one of his books for the first
time - Insanity - though I'm about 3/4 through it. But I have been
aware generally of his views for many years and have read most of the
messages in the archives here before and after joining the group. This
thread is going into some fundamentals and, because of my limited
reading of Szasz at this time, I do not know fully to what degree he
has addressed them himself.

--- In thomasszaszdiscussion@yahoogroups.com, Matt Dioguardi <dio@...>
wrote:
>
>
> On Jan 25, 2008, at 9:34 AM, Acquista wrote:
> > But I think there are valuable questions to be asked. What are the
> > results of getting people off dangerous substances when they enter
> > treatment voluntarily vs. involuntarily? Does involuntarily putting
> > people in treatment do anyone some good? I would think yes, it does,
> > and some are grateful later, but I would also say many feel
> > humiliated and dehumanized leading to other problems when they get
> > out. So called interventions where a family members is confronted
> > and taken to the hospital have been known to do as much harm as
> > good. It is not just like taking a car against its well to the
> > mechanic, since the car has no feelings or resentment, whereas
> > people are people and more complicated, certainly.
>
> I think the key to this is the word "voluntary". It's clear the state
> can be used to coerce people to do "good" things for themselves. The
> state can coerce people to eat "healthier" foods or exercise more. But
> clearly that's not desirable. The infringement on liberty would far
> out weigh any benefits gained.

I agree that the word "voluntary" is an essential component of what
was written by Acquista. More than "the state can be used to coerce
people', is that the essence of the State *is* that it has the
monopoly on the use of *legalized* force (physical coercion).
Hopefully I don't need to bring up the fact to most here, that this
legalized force extends far beyond a court ordered retention or
"treatment" of someone "diagnosed" as "mentally ill" based on a court
decision that s/he is "a danger to him/her (hir) self and/or others".
A large number of activities between parties that are voluntary and
decided by each to be of mutual benefit are deemed illegal by
governments - all sorts of products and services can only be
sold/traded if the provider has met some requirement(s) of the State,
even when the receiver does not want that requirement. Some activities
are illegal even when there is no other who is the recipient of a
sold/traded good or service, even at times when a person is acting
entirely alone. (Production and use of some items by a single person
can be illegal if that item is on a list of items proscribed by the
government.) And then there are the activities on which the government
retains a monopoly for itself and anyone engaging in them (typically
with others) risks arrest, fine and/or imprisonment. And if someone
resists the actions of a government enforcer, they can and are
physically assaulted and even killed. Reduction of liberty - which I
and husband Paul Wakfer define as "the set of those human actions
which are not physically constrained by another human" - is what
governments do by their very existence. For more detail see:
http://selfsip.org/solutions/NSC.html#freedom

I would be interested in having others point me in the direction of
Szasz's writings that address this fundamental point of government and
force, and not just its application to court decisions to 1) either
restrain the actions of someone whose behavior is unacceptable but has
not caused harm to others, or 2) to deny responsibility for harm
causing actions due to deemed "diminished capacity". Perhaps Szasz
presents his views fully in Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles
and Psychiatric Practices for which I see a brief description on his
website. What I have read so far (now that I've reached the beginning
of Ch 10) in Insanity is still limited in scope to these 2 types.

In the meantime, A more fundamental approach is needed to determine
exactly when actions are acceptable or unacceptable rather than simply
condemning the initiation of force/coercion in all interactions. I
contend it is not the initiation of force but the effecting of harm,
as determined by the person professing harm, that one properly seeks
to prevent, and the evaluation of that harm, as determined by the
harmed person, that one should properly seek to restitute. If Person A
were about to step off a curb into oncoming traffic, it would be
reasonable for a person B to grab (possibly even knock down) person A
to keep hir from being struck by a vehicle (and most people would take
such an action). The amount of force Person B might need to use could
vary considerably depending on several circumstances. Most likely,
Person A would be quite grateful at having been saved from being run
down; but if s/he were injured in the process, s/he might not be
overjoyed. Moreover, if Person A really wanted to commit suicide s/he
wouldn't be pleased at all at the interference. In a proper society,
Person B would be responsible for restitution for the total harm that
Person A decides has been done to hir (harm caused by the interference
minus the expected value of the harm caused by being struck by a
vehicle). And in such a society, where information freely flowed, the
social preferencing of both of them by all others would, in effect,
determine whether the requirement for restitution of the claimed harm
is justified. (This is but a very brief example of harm vs force and
much much more has been written elsewhere - starting with "Social
Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Human Interaction"
http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html

With respect to the involuntary treatment given to someone, the
correct method of analysis is based on the person(s) using the
coercion being fully responsible for any ultimate harm resulting from
their actions. If the person placed in treatment is afterwards
grateful and happier as a result, then that person has been benefited
rather than harmed (depending on the whole costs of the situation such
as treatment costs and who pays for them) and no harm has been done.
In effect, "after-the-fact" permission is now given for the prior use
of coercion. However, if the person placed in treatment continues to
reject the treatment as beneficial, then those person(s) using
coercion to have hir treated are now responsible for restitution of
the harm that they have done to hir.


> However, say that I voluntarily enter a six week exercise camp where I
> must go through a rigorous routine everyday. The key again would be
> whether it was voluntary or not. So long as I could always leave, then
> that's fine. People can shout at me and push me around at camp to get
> me to exercise, so long as I can leave at any time.
>
> There is the case where I might want to voluntarily put myself in a
> position where I can't exercise my own volition for a period of time.
> Imagine I sign up for a six week exercise camp from which I am not
> "allowed" to get out of the program. If we consider that the only way
> to keep me in the program would be physical coercion of some sort,
> then certainly this is a bad idea. It's similar to the idea that I
> could sell myself off as a slave.

While the purpose of military boot camps is not as an "exercise camp",
it definitely includes a "rigorous routine everyday" that includes
people shouting and pushing the enlistees around. There likely is
someway a person can get out of hir enlistment contract (as opposed to
a conscription) and leave boot camp without being restrained, jailed
and tried for being AWOL, but it is not at all like just saying, "I've
had enough. I'm leaving. Here's the money back you paid me to come."
and being politely acknowledged as simply having executed the contract
escape clause.

It seems to me that when one enlists in the military, one is in fact
voluntarily becoming a slave to the government of that particular
country/region.

So yes, while both of these may be "a bad idea" (and no rational
person would ever do such), it would be a denial of a person's liberty
to not allow hir to sign such a contract. There is an old libertarian
maxim (used by my husband Paul Wakfer starting in the late 1970s)
which applies here: "everyone should be free to go to hell in hir own
way!"


> You are always responsible for your actions. You can't sign away your
> inalienable rights for a day or more.

I don't see that these two ideas go together. Actually, the concept of
inalienable rights is fraught with problems due to inconsistencies.
Very briefly, if rights (of "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness" as listed in the Preamble to US Constitution) are
inalienable (and inherent in people as human beings), then how is it
that they can be removed by the government? And then sometimes be
restored to the person by that same or a different government? At
exactly what point in hir life does a person first obtain these
"rights" and how? Furthermore in practice, the concept of rights is
totally powerless without the voluntary cooperation of others (but
then - rhetorically - just why is it even needed and how is it to be
universally understood and accepted?). It does not help to tell your
executioner: "You can't shoot me, I have the inherent right to life!"
or your car thief: "you can't take my car, I correctly purchased title
to it and have the inalienable right to own and possess it!"

This group's purpose is for discussion of Thomas Szasz's works, so
I'll not pursue here the subject of the problem of natural rights.
Paul Wakfer has done so quite pointedly in his essay, "Social
Meta-Needs: A New Basis for Optimal Human Interaction".

However, if the idea of "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness" is to mean anything to someone who *does* consider natural
rights valid and practical, then surely a person has the right to take
hir own life or arrange for someone else to do so. Likewise, that same
person then also has the right to sign a contract by which s/he sells
hirself into bondage for a time or even indefinitely, if that is what
s/he has voluntarily chosen to do. I think the person who signs such a
contract without a termination/escape clause is very foolish (and
would say so), but that is where liberty comes in. Now this isn't the
way current courts view such a situation, but then that is part of the
fundamental inconsistency present in the current system.


> For example, even if I sign a
> contract giving an exercise camp the ability to use coercion to keep
> me at the camp, if I later decide to leave despite the contract, the
> agency of law enforcement should arrest the owners of the camp if they
> use physical coercion to make me stay. The contract is meaningless.
> You can't volunteer away your inalienable rights.

As I stated above, there are fundamental inconsistencies here in the
concept of "inalienable rights", which is precisely the reason that I
and my husband, Paul Wakfer, have abandoned the idea in favor of the
concept of Social Meta-Needs which he has discovered from a thorough
analysis of the nature of humans in reality and explicated in the
essay referred to above.


> Of course you could say, but with drugs its a matter of life or death.
> But then that's always the case with everything. Everything is about
> life and death.
>
> Best,
> Matt Dioguardi

I really expected to make my first post as a question on a different
and perhaps less foundational subject than this one on which I have a
radically different position from (possibly) most posters here, but to
me this message really needed some fundamental comments. If I had let
it pass I would not have been consistent with my principles.


**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting