Identifying and Dealing With the Insane

Geraldo Rivera has much to answer for. Forty-three years ago Rivera went unannounced into Willowbrook and ended the states affirmatively identifying the mentally disabled and placing them in care. Now incompetent or dangerous people are left free to roam. They cannot be detained against their will except for short periods. What is needed is a safe method to identify the insane and remove them from the voting, jury and militia (2nd Amend) lists while protecting the rights of citizens.

In theory a court could declare a person incompetent but Civil Liberties groups and minorities fearful of being targeted, at one time homosexuals could be declared morally unfit, have combined to render the mechanism inoperable. Now we have political operatives signing up mental patients and drug addicted or deranged prisoners for absentee ballots. We just had a clearly deranged person shoot a US Congresswoman and kill 6 people including a Federal Judge and a 9 year old girl. Congresswoman Gifford herself is on record as a self described "Blue Dog" Democrat who supports the rights of gun owners. Radicals, usually on the left, want to restrict those rights of citizens and the Libertarians fear giving the government the power to make distinctions between aliens, citizens and the incompetent. Creating a process that can make those distinctions is the role of a government in a Democracy.