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Liberalism and Justice
by Glenn Woiceshyn
[The following letter was published in the Globe and Mail on July 5, 1996 in response
to an editorial discussing a highly-publicized trial where a woman got away with
shooting (but not killing) her husband, a well-known businessman, on dubious "psychological"
grounds.]
Dear Editor,
Re: "Disorder, Disorder in the Court"--Editorial--Globe and Mail--May/13/96
In response to the troubling Joudrie verdict, your excellent editorial (May 13) asked:
"has psychiatry's attempt to understand crime been twisted into a justification
for [crime]?" It does seem that way.
For many decades, the ominous trend in psychology has been to obliterate the distinction
between an inherited mental defect and a self-induced mental disorder, which is like
obliterating the difference between someone born with bad lungs and a chain-smoker.
The net result is to absolve the individual of responsibility for his or her chosen
actions.
The individual (excluding the truly insane) has the capacity to direct his or her
mental processes and either think rationally and thus achieve mental health, or evade
that responsibility and become an insecure neurotic, or emotionalist, or mystic,
or any other form of irrational misfit.
To absolve people of such a basic responsibility is to enshrine irrationality, punish
virtue, reward vice and thus destroy justice -- which is precisely what modern liberalism
achieves in practice.
Sincerely,
Glenn Woiceshyn
© 1997 Glenn Woiceshyn. All rights reserved.
This article can be found on-line at at http://www.capitalism.org/glennw. |
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