An article in the Hendersonville Times-News spotlights a lot of problems. The angle of the story is consideration of halving Pisgah Legal Services’ funding. While the agency spends money on all sorts of things to help poor people buy justice, the article focuses on the legal protections it procures for victims of domestic abuse.
Well, that’s sad, isn’t it? The country that is supposed to protect our freedoms has made it an impossible, expensive mess for somebody to run from more or less explicit, targeted intentions of violent perps.
The article also includes commentary about what Henderson County’s former sheriff referred to as the “deformation” of mental health care. Once upon a time, I didn’t know any crazy people. Now, just about everybody I meet has some diagnosis. While enjoying a nice conversation, things suddenly turn into weird tales of connected dots, supernatural powers, energy, and other such things. People are not bashful to mention their medications, either.
The easy answer, of course, would be to let practitioners spend more time diagnosing with discretion instead of doing paperwork and following protocols. As for protecting people in harm’s way, I have a radical idea: Why doesn’t government – that defender of liberties – spend more money on protecting the innocents; instead of viewing the innocents as turnips to be bled in exchange for permission to build a driveway.
