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The "Reagan closed the mental hospitals" myth

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Rudy Canoza

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Feb 2, 2015, 4:26:57 PM2/2/15
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It's shit, of course - long discredited, but leftists refuse to let it go.


http://www.gormogons.com/index.php/2013/03/reagan-didnt-close-down-mental-hospitals/

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_23422055/another-voice-mental-health-myths

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html

That last one, the NY Times piece, is very interesting. It says:

In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental
hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was
Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in
1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of
his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr.

So: state mental health hospital patients fell in California by over
41% under Gov. Pat Brown; and the number continued to fall under Gov.
Jerry Brown, after Reagan left office.

The Lanterman-Petris-Short act signed by Reagan was a bipartisan bill
that passed a completely Democrat-dominated state legislature with only
one 'nay' vote in the assembly, and the bill reflected the
recommendations of the mental health profession.

As always, the left is full of shit.

--

I ceased in the year 1764 to believe that one can convince one’s
opponents with arguments printed in books. It is not to do that,
therefore, that I have taken up my pen, but merely so as to annoy them,
and to bestow strength and courage on those on our own side, and to make
it known to the others that they have not convinced us.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
1742 - 1799

Rudy Canoza

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Feb 2, 2015, 4:27:17 PM2/2/15
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bush.m...@gmail.com

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May 12, 2017, 11:19:35 PM5/12/17
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Really what about 1980 when he was president and not govener

Poor dumb Curt

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May 13, 2017, 11:42:46 AM5/13/17
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On 5/12/2017 9:19 PM, bush.m...@gmail.com wrote:
> Really what about 1980 when he was president and not govener
>

Did your release work out well?

a425couple

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Sep 29, 2020, 10:51:36 PM9/29/20
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On 9/29/2020 11:49 AM, Rudy Canoza wrote:
> On 5/12/2017 8:19 PM, bush.m...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Really what about 1980 when he was president and not govener [sic]
>
> Moron:  Reagan wasn't president in 1980.
>
> You didn't read the original post or any of the links.  Here, stupid,
> try again:
>
> http://www.gormogons.com/index.php/2013/03/reagan-didnt-close-down-mental-hospitals/
>
> http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_23422055/another-voice-mental-health-myths
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/30/science/how-release-of-mental-patients-began.html
>
> That last one, the NY Times piece, is very interesting. It says:
>
> In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental
> hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was
> Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in
> 1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of
> his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr.
>
> So: state mental health hospital patients fell in California by over
> 41% under Gov. Pat Brown; and the number continued to fall under Gov.
> Jerry Brown, after Reagan left office.
>
> The Lanterman-Petris-Short act signed by Reagan was a bipartisan bill
> that passed a completely Democrat-dominated state legislature with only
> one 'nay' vote in the assembly, and the bill reflected the
> recommendations of the mental health profession.
>
Yes. There were real valid and good reasons to
move toward LESS people being hospitalized than
had been previously.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was a 1962 novel.
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was a 1975 American drama film
"Will There Really Be a Morning?" was based ~ on Francis Farmer (1972)
"Shadowland" in 1978 is also questionable but based on Farmer.
All the above decreased the reputations of "mental health hospitals"
(for both fair and unfair reasons).

> =======================================================================
>
> "Lanterman" in the Lanterman-Petris-Short act is the late Frank D.
> Lanterman, a Republican who served in the California state assembly for
> 28 year, representing the district I lived in from birth to early
> adulthood. He also attended the same church my family did.  Lanterman
> hearkens back to the era in which Republicans weren't all
> knuckle-dragging vicious racists, but actually saw a role, albeit more
> limited than Democrats' vision, for government doing some things to help
> the truly wretched.  He was one of the last of his kind.

Al Czervik

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Sep 30, 2020, 12:24:36 PM9/30/20
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You mean like the continuing explosion of different pharma to combat a
plethora of different mental illnesses? Treating folks for $20/day v.
$2000/day? That's as crazy as a soup sandwich.

Bill Flett

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Sep 30, 2020, 12:36:47 PM9/30/20
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Lots of people, including some psychiatrists, now acknowledge that
overreliance on drugs to treat mental illness was a mistake. Reagan was
not responsible for that in any way.

BT

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Sep 30, 2020, 3:34:05 PM9/30/20
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On Friday, May 12, 2017 at 8:19:35 PM UTC-7, bush.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> Really what about 1980 when he was president and not govener


Still no deal. There was a major lawsuit courtesy of the ACLU in which
the courts ruled in their favor that led to most mentally ill people
being released because it was illegal to keep them locked up past a
certain point.

But it has been so easy for the left to blame Reagan ever since.

B. T.

Al Czervik

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Oct 1, 2020, 6:35:14 PM10/1/20
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Yea, right... His kick ass economy spurred on no less than 200 mental
health pharmaceuticals that are still in use today. Overreliance? OK,
I'll give you that one - He wasn't responsible for that.


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