{"id":54294,"date":"2015-07-15T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T11:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=54294"},"modified":"2015-07-15T06:12:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T11:12:57","slug":"youre-crazy-to-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=54294","title":{"rendered":"You’re Crazy To Dissent!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 1970s \u2013 during Leonid Brezhnev’s kinder, gentler version of the Soviet Union \u2013 the gulags of the Lenin and Stalin regimes were largely replaced by “psychiatric hospitals”.<\/p>\n

Since disssent from government was considered a mental illness in the Soviet Union, naturally, dissidents needed “treatment”.<\/p>\n

Author Dinesh D’Souza \u2013 one of the Obama administration’s most prolific and articulate dissidents \u2013 got caught up a few years ago in one of the\u00a0web of speech rationing laws. These laws \u2013 commonly referred to as “campaign-finance laws” – are intended to, and eventually will, make all political speech and activity, including (I predict) this blog, potentially prosecutable.<\/p>\n

Judges and bureaucrats referring to speech as “illegal” is nothing new; it’s the battle freedom will always have to fight.<\/p>\n

But using the psychiatric profession to beat down dissent? \u00a0It’s baaaack<\/a>; D’Souza’s judge has ordered him, for a third time, to seek psychiatric treatment:<\/p>\n

D\u2019Souza\u2019s defense counsel Benjamin Brafman provided evidence to the court that the psychiatrist D\u2019Souza was ordered to see found no indication of depression or reason for medication. In addition, the psychologist D\u2019Souza subsequently consulted provided a written statement concluding there was no need to continue the consultation, because D\u2019Souza was psychologically normal and well adjusted.
\nBut Judge Berman, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, disagreed, effectively overruling the judgment of the two licensed psychological counselors the U.S. probation department had approved as part of D\u2019Souza\u2019s criminal sentence.
\n\u201cI only insisted on psychological counseling as part of Mr. D\u2019Souza\u2019s sentence because I wanted to be helpful,\u201d the judge explained. \u201cI am requiring Mr. D\u2019Souza to see a new psychological counselor and to continue the weekly psychological consultation not as part of his punishment or to be retributive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Point of basic logic to Judge Berman: \u00a0if you’re “requiring” the treatment, you’re not doing it to be helpful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 1970s \u2013 during Leonid Brezhnev’s kinder, gentler version of the Soviet Union \u2013 the gulags of the Lenin and Stalin regimes were largely replaced by “psychiatric hospitals”. Since disssent from government was considered a mental illness in the Soviet Union, naturally, dissidents needed “treatment”. Author Dinesh D’Souza \u2013 one of the Obama administration’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,286,310,255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","category-police-powers","category-speech-rationing","category-the-racket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54294"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54318,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54294\/revisions\/54318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}