Conservatism and Mental Illness

In almost all ways, I love conservatism and conservative values. In almost anything I love talking with conservatives and discussing with those who are wise, the truths of politics and what our nation needs. However, there is one area in which many conservatives seem to be sorely lacking. The issue is mental illness.

I have far too many members of my family suffering from mental illness, so I have come to be a major advocate in favour of supporting mental health issues and ending the stigma against them. In my efforts to help those suffering from these often genetic diseases, I have met liberals and only liberals. Not once have I met someone even remotely conservative who takes up these issues except for my own parents. Instead I see conservatives say evil things about the mentally ill. Yesterday, I listened to a conservative pundit use “mental illness” as the ultimate intellectual insult to hurl at the liberals. Hearing him speak in such a way made me want to hit the bugger.

How are we so wise in almost everything, but so foolish in this issue? Why do I see so many conservatives treat the mentally ill as subhuman? We are better! If we know the truth about economics, and proper size of government, and tax policy and so many other issues, how can we not know the truth about mental illness?

My friends, the liberals are enslaving the mentally ill to their system just like they do to the poor. The liberals take up the cause of the mentally ill, but royally screw them over just like they do to everyone else. Even issues that are very good to fight for are fought for in entirely the wrong way. Take the issue of parity. Bigotry against the mentally ill means that there is no insurance company out there that will cover mental health as well as physical health. The mentally ill desperately need the same coverage for terribly expensive medical costs. How do we solve the problem? Well the liberals want regulations. They want to shove parity down the industry’s throat. Talk about a good cause fought for in a bad way! We need to give tax breaks to industries that rise above petty anti mental illness bigotry. Encourage them, rather than regulate them. There may be an even better solution. But only we conservatives can find it.

I have a mentally ill conservative friend who refuses to take up the cause of mental health because everyone else in that cause is liberal. We must not give in! We must take this issue from the liberals and do it right! Mental illness is a real issue being very badly handled by liberals and ignored by conservatives. Let us right this wrong.

Gentle Readers, I have great faith in conservatism. I don’t mean to slam our ways, so much as call you to action. The first action is to educate yourselves on mental illness, and I’ll provide a link or two for that. Next we must find solutions to the stigma problem and help the mentally ill to help themselves, rather than enslave them to the government systems like the liberals are doing. I believe in you, my friends. I know we can do this!

Links:

NAMI: http://www.nami.org/ - look for information about the different mental illnesses
Mental illnesses page: http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Inform_Yourself/About_Mental_Illness/About_Mental_Illness.htm

I’ll post more links later