Quote (WidowMaKer_MK @ Nov 18 2013 02:21am)
...ah , I remember the good old days when we were truly free ...free to work from sun up to sun down tilling the fields and sowing the crops and milking the cow and slopping the hogs , free to die from measles or chicken pox or tuberculosis or even gangrene from a simple cut , the freedom of cholera and yellow fever and polio and when leisure time was the 5 minute walk from the outhouse to the woodpile . Now that my friends was true freedom ( sigh )
You're talking about advances in medicine, not social structure.
Personally, I'm a mental health victim. I've posted my stories here before because I like to write about them to understand my experience and even to accept criticism.
So here's my story:
In 2010, at Burning Man, I was doing hatha yoga on the playa and some people came up to me asking if I was alright... I was doing better than ever and declined to respond because I just wanted them to stop bothering me. Some medical professionals were called and took me to a hospital tent where I gave my 2 cents and was released. I walked about 25 yards away from the medical tent and continued my sadhana. A crowd of people gathered around me to watch my movements, which were pretty profound after living at an ashram studying yoga and practicing day and night for 8+ hours a day. For whatever reason, even tho I had just been released from a medical tent, now officers were called to the scene.
When I wouldn't respond to the officers, who were frankly offending me with their concerns, they informed me that a psychologist was being summoned. I frankly didn't give a flying fuck because I was doing no wrong, and I believed I had certain rights. The police officers used the terms "thousand yard stare" and "crouching tiger hidden dragon" to describe my behavior. The crowd which had gathered around me was chanting "Let him breathe." The psychologist arrived and told me he was concerned about my well-being and safety. He took me back to the medical tent where someone ordered me a shot of Thorazine. I got into a fight with 5-6 medical personal and police who were trying to restrain me and inject me with drugs against my will. I screamed "NO DRUGS!" and "STOP, HELP", but no one was willing to confront the professionals. I don't believe they succeeded in injecting me, but the mental health professional had me committed to a short term mental health facility for observation.
Six months later I quit living at the ashram and left to become a sanyassi or complete renunciate. While I was in California I walked from Tiajuana to Napa Valley, or about 600 miles. The journey took me three months and during that time I was taken to a hospital by local police 20+ times for observation. They believed I was on drugs. Twice I refused to piss in a cup and was cathaterized, which is where they stick a tube down your penis to suck your piss out of you so they can drug test you.
Most recently, in March of this year, I was taken from my home for knocking on my neighbors doors. The neighbors reported me to management who called crisis prevention. I was taken to a local hospital where they kept me in isolation for eight days, before admitting me to the general population where I stayed for only five days before being released.
The subversive today are truly unfree. Be they interred into Gitmo or a hospital without crime or charges.