[blueerica]

While I do agree that there should be higher quality mental services available, I do not see how it could have prevented what happened this past Monday. Outside of willfully submitting oneself to therapy, treatment and counseling, there is nothing we could have done, or should have done. Up until Monday, from what I could tell, Cho had committed no crime other than being a creep - and how many creeps are out there in the world?

I do not want to see witch-hunts against those whom some perceive as having an illness.

I don't want to see us turn back to a time of forced treatments.

I'm struggling, for some reason, to find a way to explain what I'm trying to get at... I guess most of all, I believe that forcing treatment is a slippery slope. We can say now that this will be a benefit, but who is to say that it can't turn into a tool for persecution, a different sort of imprisonment - perhaps for even those who do not suffer from any mental illness... a tool to lock away the opposition. Call them crazy, and have them be gone. I know that's pretty extreme, but it is possible. Plus, my freedoms are all I really have, even if they are perceived. I don't want what shreds are left to be decided for myself to be taken away.

So yes, I think we need to have better mental services available. Forcing it, labeling people, and perhaps unnecessarily incarcerating them in a facility is not a choice we should make for people.