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Thomas Stephen Szasz Biography

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“Although both home and mental illness are complex, modern ideas, we have fallen into the habit of using phrases such as "housing the homeless" and "treating the mentally ill" as if we knew what counts as housing a homeless person or what it means to treat mental illness. But we do not. We have deceived ourselves that having a home and being mentally healthy are our natural conditions, and that we become homeless or mentally ill as a result of "losing" our homes or our minds. The opposite is the case. We are born without a home and without reason, and have to exert ourselves and are fortunate if we succeed in building a secure home and a sound mind.”

HomeMental HealthMental IllnessHomelessness
Book:Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted
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“The concept of disease is fast replacing the concept of responsibility. With increasing zeal Americans use and interpret the assertion "I am sick" as equivalent to the assertion "I am not responsible": Smokers say they are not responsible for smoking, drinkers that they are not responsible for drinking, gamblers that they are not responsible for gambling, and mothers who murder their infants that they are not responsible for killing. To prove their point — and to capitalize on their self-destructive and destructive behavior — smokers, drinkers, gamblers, and insanity acquitees are suing tobacco companies, liquor companies, gambling casinos, and physicians.”

ResponsibilityHealth
Author:Thomas Stephen Szasz
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“It is mainly by resisting authority that the individual defines himself. This is why authorities--whether parental, priestly, political, or psychiatric--must be careful how and where they assert themselves; for while it is true that the more they assert themselves the more they govern, it is also true that the more they assert themselves the more opportunities they offer for being successfully denied.”

LibertyAuthorityRebellionAutonomyCoercion
Book:Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts and Pushers
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“Honoring the value of competence and steadfastness requires a generosity of spirit and a curbing of the passion for envy, traits that few people value and fewer still cultivate and acquire. Not until there is more of Smith and less of Hobbes in the human heart, will the majority of people prefer peaceful and boring market relations to the violent and exciting relations between coercer and coerced, predator and victim”

LibertyEconomicsEnvyCoercionAdam SmithThomas Hobbes
Book:Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted
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“There is probably one thing, and one thing only, on which the leaders of all modern states agree; on which Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mohammedans, and atheists agree; on which Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, Communists, Liberals, and Conservatives agree; on which medical and scientific authorities throughout the world agree; and on which the views, as expressed through opinion polls and voting records, of the large majority of individuals in all civilized countries agree. That thing is the “scientific fact” that certain substances which people like to ingest or inject are “dangerous” both to those who use them and to others; and that the use of such substances constitutes “drug abuse” or “drug addiction”— a disease whose control and eradication are the duty of the combined forces of the medical profession and the state); However, there is little agreement—from people to people, country to country, even decade to decade—on which substances are acceptable and their use therefore considered a popular pastime, and which substances are unacceptable and their use therefore considered “drug abuse” and “drug addiction.” (Preface to Ceremonial Chemistry)”

War On DrugsDrug UseMinority Rights
Author:Thomas Stephen Szasz
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“The term 'deinstitutionalization' conceals some simple truths, namely, that old, unwanted persons, formerly housed in state hospitals, are now housed in nursing homes; that young, unwanted persons, formerly also housed in state hospitals, are now housed in prisons or parapsychiatric facilities; and that both groups of inmates are systematically drugged with psychiatric medications.”

PrisonMental IllnessMedicationInstitutionalizationMental HospitalsDeinstitutionalization
Book:Cruel Compassion: Psychiatric Control of Society's Unwanted
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“Many of the verbal expressions that cause people to be detained on "mental health" grounds are — should be — protected speech. People who say things considered incomprehensible or illogical by the police or "mental health" workers are given ostensibly medical diagnoses and imprisoned for a limited time. That is, people who speak in a way those in authority disapprove of are punished, even if the speaker breaks no law. This blatant and often exercised limit on free speech is a "for your own good" exception to the First Amendment. There should be no such exception. But it is so woven into the fabric of American society and jurisprudence that virtually nobody objects. You can refuse a lifesaving treatment for cancer, but you cannot refuse to be jailed for saying something like, "I am Jesus" to the police when they are doing a "welfare check," a euphemism if there ever was one.”

Free SpeechPsychiatryPolicing
Author:Thomas Stephen Szasz
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