The Coming Perfect Storm: Warfare Between the Mentally Ill in the Streets of America
Joe Rosenbaum is one of the thousands of mentally ill who are not being treated for their illnesses in the manner that best cares for their specific needs. In fact, it wasn’t until he attempted suicide that he received any help from a neurologist or mental health care professional.
Why? Because in Arizona, as in most states, once an individual acts out because of his/her mental obsessions and psychological problems, and commits a felony, he/she becomes labeled competent by the courts, wherein only a fraction of the criminal cases (less than one percent) are ever defended because of the client being mentally ill. Therefore, most (99 percent) of the defendants are being placed into the prison system when convicted, as was the case with Rosenbaum.
When are we going to treat our mentally ill population the way they should be treated? Just because one “acts out” does not mean he/she is instantaneously a criminal mind. In fact, any human, under the proper conditions, can act in a criminal way, as did Mr. Kyle Rittenhouse. However, nobody questions the “sanity” of what Rittenhouse did. In fact, his act of killing two humans and wounding another that night is now being hailed by many in the press, and by dangerous militia groups, and others, as proof positive that self-defense is patriotic and the best way to handle the defense of person and property rights.
Ironically, however, Mr. Rosenbaum saved Mr. Rittenhouse from being convicted of intentional homicide when he reached out for his gun. Rosenbaum was not medicated when he did this. He was shouting “Shoot me. shoot me,” to anybody with a gun that night. Medication, by the way, is the “go to” behavioral control our mental health system has over such populations of the mentally ill.
They receive no individual care or psychiatric treatment anymore, thanks to Ronald Reagan and the laws which released most of the mental patients from our psychiatric hospitals around the United States in order to privatize the system to “save money.” Only special cases, such as the would-be assassin of Reagan, John Hinckley, Jr., whose parents were tremendously wealthy, ever get 24/7 treatment for their illnesses under safe, humanitarian, and controlled conditions.
Most of our mentally ill are either wandering on their own in the streets, like Joseph Rosenbaum was, or they are locked-up in our prisons and jails. Take a look at this website for further information of this escalating problem.
I am afraid that the result might be a “perfect storm” coming up during our elections of 2022 and 2024, as well as in the case of future racist-motivated police shootings around these United States. There are thousands of untreated mentally ill, over 50%, on both sides of the political “divide,” as the mentally ill tend to gravitate toward the extremes of society, as they are constantly visualizing extremes inside their minds due to illnesses such a bi-polar disorder. The result? A possible and literal “war” between these two extremes of mentally ill folks, with a resulting bloodbath playing out in our streets.
When the German brown shirts, motivated by the political rise of one Adolph Hitler, were weaponized, they could also be labeled “mentally ill.” However, ironically, when Hitler came to power, he did what we’re doing in the United States (and worse). He put them into concentration camps or, under the so-called T4 Program, he killed them or experimented on them for the “good of Third Reich.”
I hope we don’t allow this to happen in this country, but it could very well come to pass, in the strike of lightening bolt.