doctor disease redux

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Wed May 23 13:48:53 PDT 2001


At 03:47 PM 5/23/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Wojtek said:
>
>So if the brat that happens to be your child throws repeated tantrums, say,
>because you did not buy him what his peers have, you have basically two
>choices:
>
>(1) sending the brat to a boot camp (if you can afford the $2,000 -$6,000
>per month tuition), or
>(2) medicate him (most insurance plans cover prescription drugs).
>
>
>and Marta said:
>
>The fact that you refer to a child
>as "brat" shows how hopelessly twisted you are.
>
>and Todd says: I'm not scolding EITHER of these two for hitting "SEND"
>before thinking; I rather like my head (and other parts of me) still
>attached to my body.

What is so unreasonable in my posting? Are you suggesting that there are no children throwing tantrums? I am not saying that every child does that, most of them probably do not, but the problem of "hyperactive" out of control children is quite real in this country.

In fact, I've witnessed instances of those - it involves screaming, uncontrolled aggression that involves kicking & punching others, throwing objects, and running wildly. The only way to control such a child is to physically restrain it. If that happens in a public place (e.g. a department store), the probablity of someone calling the cops or taking your licence plate number and reporting you to authorities for alleged "child abuse" are quite high. Medicating such a child seems a very reasonable preventive measure to avoid both the unruly behavior and unpleasant consequences of trying to deal with it.

That may offend the sensibilities of the sandal-and-bead wearing "liberals" who think that a child should be able to freely express any emotion it feels, but in my book this is yet another symptom of this societey's decadence. Every normal society, human and animal alike, takes measures, sometimes quite draconian, to prevent unruly, out-of-control behavior in their young. Medication seems one of the most humane of them.

wojtek



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