Martin Kessler wrote:

> Downs syndrome and Alzheimers aren't mental illnesses

Depends on how you define mental illness. Psychiatrists are the ones in
whom the state vests the power to define them, and they include them.
But I wasn't suggesting that they are. I only mentioned them because I
thought you would accept that such people have real disabilities.

> Competence is
> determined for individuals that have neurological diseases like Downs
> or Alzheimers on a case by case basis.

By whom?

You seem to be assuming that all agreed neurological disease can be
objectively determined. But take your example in the previous message,
epilepsy. The lay public thinks that epilepsy is diagnosed on the basis
of an EEG. This is not the case. If you pull 100 perfectly normally
functioning people who have never had a seizure from the street, 15%
will have deviant EEGs. Conversely, 50% of all people who regularly
suffer spontaneous seizures have EEGs that show no deviance. Clearly the
EEG is not a reliable diagnostic tool. (It is, i.m.o., just as much a
scam as brain scans.) So how is epilepsy diagnosed? The same way
psychiatrists diagnose "ADHD": by personal opinion. And the dilantin you
mentioned in your previous message is nothing other than a low-dose
neuroleptic.

My point is that the dividing line between neurological normality and
neurological deviance is not at all as clear-cut as would be convenient.

> Do you know any person with Downs
> syndrome that graduated Medical school?

No, why, is that your criterion of potential competence?

> ADHD more than likely have no neurological condition
> at all

More than likely, but we don't know what is likely, let alone what is
more than likely. My point is, one can't just decide that people with
diagnosis A are competent and people with diagnosis B are not on the
grounds of one's personal diagnostic beliefs.

As ruling someone incompetent seriously impedes his liberty, we need
some hard and fast rules. What are they?

Mira