>Perhaps the ACLU's worst blunder, at least in terms of social
>consequences,
>was the drive it opened in the 1960s to "liberate" the hundreds of
>thousands
>of mental patients then languishing in state hospitals. Powerful
>tranquilizing drugs were just coming onto the market, and the ACLU
>argued
>that they made involuntary commitment of most of the mentally ill
>unnecessary.
>The state governments, which were shouldering the enormous cost of
>caring
>for these unfortunates, were all too ready to agree. Which is why,
>today, as
>many as a third of the "homeless" who have blossomed in every American
>city
>since 1980 are mental cases who, needless to say, don't get (or at any
>rate
>don't take) the medications that would at least render them harmless to
>themselves or others.
>That is why it is extraordinarily good news that a new organization has
>just
>been formed that clearly aims to take on the ACLU on its own turf.
>Called
>the American Civil Rights Union, the group is chaired by Robert B.
>Carleson,
>a former U.S. Commissioner of Welfare and Special Assistant to President
>Reagan for Policy Development,