Those who cannot learn from history

GM Roper, who claims to be a “Mental Health professional”, argues that anyone on the left is insane, suffering from a “severe form of mental illness”.

What does this tell us? It tells us that GM Roper would have made a top-notch Soviet psychiatrist.

In the Soviet Union, psychiatric hospitals were used by the authorities as prisons for forced treatment of political prisoners in order to isolate them from “normal” society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally. The official explanation was that “no sane person would declaim against Soviet government and communism”.

If Roper is a “mental health professional”, he is an exceedingly dangerous one. Let us all hope that no one he deals with is ever singled out for his attention because he finds out their political views.

UPDATE 01/02/06: Roper has posted a long response to a series of comments (which, inexplicably, he deletes and then quotes). The key phrase in his meanderings is this:

Secondly, there was seldom, if ever, any recognized symptomology of mental illnes of these unfortunate individuals; they had merely come crosswise with the Soviet (read evil) Empire.

Well, that’s exactly the methodology that Roper, an alleged “mental health professional”, has followed. He cites no “recognized symptomology of mental illnes” (sic) … merely an invented series of imaginary mental ailments, all of which boil down this: When he sees that someone disagrees with his political views, he assumes they must be mentally ill.

That’s exactly what the Soviet psychiatrists did. Despite all Roper’s tap-dancing, he’s using the same tactic: declare any dissent to be the result of derangement. This view is far too prevalent amongst the radical right on the Web, who are utterly uninterested in reasoned debate.