To me, being locked up indefinitely without being able to adequately participate in one's defense, is a bigger restriction on my rights, than being forcibly medicated for a finite time, particularly if/since there's a possibility that being forcibly medicated means it might be possible to avoid being locked up at all.

Animal crackers! Day and night!

Also I am having, no joke, a Mounds bar for lunch. Because, as this discussion has demonstrated, sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don't.

Part of my concern is "Is she crazy or is she just different"? What's her base state? Would she eventually come to a more normative state with medication and stay there without being maintained there?

Mental state and drugs is still a very tricky place for me. Minds are infinitely diverse, and I haven't gotten my own self completely around the idea of manipulating brains. Don't jump on me, I know there are lots of people who couldn't be their own quirky individual selves without some help. And I know you can't leave people who kidnap kids out in the world. I keep thinking, though, that someone should say to the woman, "YOu know society disapproves of taking children from their homes, right? No matter what God may be telling you? You understand that the way things stand now we're keeping you locked up until we think you're functioning on a more stable footing, right? OK, then." That way she keeps her own possibly flawed integrity and society doesn't have to worry about what she might get up to next.

I suppose my philosophy on this is Act how you want, accept the consequences no matter what. It doesn't keep people from comitting crimes, but it would keep people from whining in courts that they were misunderstood. I believe a good 90% of those folks who apologize are actually saying, "I'm real sorry I got caught," not "I'm real sorry I did it."

From Hayden's link re: black holes:

Chapline argues that a star doesn't simply collapse to form a black hole; instead, the space-time inside it becomes filled with dark energy and this has some intriguing gravitational effects.

"Dark Energy"? Isn't that like something Darkseid would use? It sounds way more like a cheesy comic book than physics.

Though the universe is often cheesy, and that may turn out to be the universal constant.

Is it swiss cheese? That would explain the holes.

(Don't tell Perkins)

But if she's truly psychotic, she doesn't HAVE that integrity. Just as someone with thyroid problems isn't "normal" when their chemistry is all screwed up and their resulting lethargy needs to treated, a psychotic person's chemistry is all screwed up, and their resulting confusion needs to be treated.

ION, WTF!!!

WASHINGTON — In a move intended to counter terrorism, the U.S. will require by 2008 that Americans show passports or other specialized documents to reenter the country from Mexico and Canada, federal officials said Tuesday.

Under the restrictions, recommended by the Sept. 11 commission, Americans no longer would be allowed to show only a driver's license or a government-issued photo identification card, officials said. Similarly, Canadians, who have been able to enter the United States with a driver's license, would need a passport.

[link]

But if she's truly psychotic, she doesn't HAVE that integrity

I'm not sure it's been proven she is, though.

"Dark Energy"?

It comes from observations that show that the Universe's expansion rate is increasing. Since gravity should be slowing down the gravity rate, there must be some other force involved. Since nobody knows what the heck it is, it gets a cheesy name. Cosmology is pretty screwed up right now because we are obviously missing some pieces in our understanding of things.

If she committed the crime while insane, how could she have forfeited those rights?

Because you're responsible for your actions even if you're insane. If you're not competent to stand trial, then you forfeit A, B and C (notably, your ability to walk around in public). If you're competent, then there are other forfeits, like bail and an eventual trial.

Medicating people back to competence is in the interest of insane people. If you never medicated someone psychotic, just locked them up and evaluated every year or so, that person would rot in an asylum till the end of his days. The path of forced medication is the path back into society (even if that society is prison); and it's only forced in the cases of people who have come to a point where forcing is necessary (people in the legal system).