Arizona may institutionalize hoarders

The Republican-led Arizona legislature was recently ranked as the worst of all 50 states, so you can bet your bottom dollar they're itching for new ways to appease the psychiatric industry - which is already rolling in cash.

Now a group called the Arizona Hoarding Task Force is urging lawmakers to pass a bill to force hoarders to seek psychiatric "treatment." It's a fact however that psychiatry is a pseudoscience - and even major media outlets are likely to view psychiatry as discredited in the coming years.

The task force defines hoarding as "the acquisition of, and failure to discard, a large number of possessions that appear to be useless or of limited value." But there's a flip side that's swept under the rug: As much as you hear about compulsive hoarding, nary a peep is raised about compulsive wasting - which I define as "the acquisition of, and failure to save, a large number of possessions that are valuable beyond our wildest dreams."

I cringe when I see perfectly good items being thrown away. I've lived a lean existence my whole life, and I could not stand to see schoolmates who were born into privilege squandering food, paper, and other resources. Are they suffering from a psychiatric disorder just because they think the planet has enough goodies for them to waste? We grew up with "We Are The World", so you'd think they'd know better.

These wastrels need a big ol' institutionalization right between the eyes, dammit! I'm not gonna rest until the guys in the clean white suits come to their house and shove a case full of Trilafon down their throats! That'll show 'em not to waste stuff!

But seriously. I have little doubt that - if this bill is passed - it'll be used to imprison dissidents without a trial. Not like that's anything new, because that's already the most common use of America's psychiatric facilities.

(Source: http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2012/06/11/news/state/doc4fd5abffcab25434835899.txt)