July 31, 2009
Disapointment
Gary McKinnon lost his appeal hearing today. It is now very likely he will be extradited to the USA. There’s a re-worded version of my earlier article posted on Liberal Conpiracy, highlighting this.
That not even the trolls are objecting to my article is indicative. Nobody can understand why the Government wants to put a mentally ill disabled UK citizen into the harsh American penal system, where he will probably die.
It’s a sad day for British justice.
Graham said,
August 1, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Yet more evidence gathered to show that Jacqui Smith has no soul.
Ste For Sure said,
August 1, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Is he mentally ill, or does he have asperger’s syndrome, or both?
If its just aspergers I’d prefer you changed it, for the sake of being both factually and politically correct.
Ta
Paul said,
August 2, 2009 at 10:51 am
“Yet more evidence gathered to show that Jacqui Smith has no soul.”
Maybe, but Alan Johnson is Home Secretary now.
“If its just aspergers I’d prefer you changed it, for the sake of being both factually and politically correct. ”
I though Asperger’s was a form of mental illness?
Ste For Sure said,
August 2, 2009 at 2:20 pm
well its a disability…its a syndrome you have from birth. You are not ill because you have it,…its part of who you are. Schizophrenia, bipolar etc are illnesses.
might seem pedantic, but autism/asperger’s/learning disabilities/downs etc are not “mental health” problems, but just facts about the person you are.
Paul said,
August 2, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Hmm, I think I see what you are getting at. It is a somewhat pedantic point. Especially as it’s perfectly normal to refer to people with Down’s syndrome as being disabled…
?
Tom N said,
August 3, 2009 at 7:10 pm
I think ‘mentally ill’, in common palance, also implies an inability to function successfully in society. It lumps Asperger’s sufferers in with obsessives, paranoid schizophrenics, and other delusionals, both violent and non-violent; something many Asberger cases would find either amusing or offensive, depending on their point of view..
Exact semantics aside, you’ve got to be careful. The Down’s comparison is a bad one. With relatively few exceptions Down’s cases fall within a certain cognitive/ability range which is, as I understand it, pretty impaired. Asberger’s, on the other hand, is a much broad spectrum. A diagnosis would not, for example, be enough on its own for a diminshed capacity plea in a court case. Though usually socially awkward and thought to be odd, unusual, or creepy by their peers, many Asberger sufferers are high functioning and go on to have kids, good jobs, etc.. Many do have a developed moral sense and it’s a nonsense to say he cannot be tried simple because he has Asberger’s, other reasons aside. The same could not be said of, say, a paranoid schizophrenic.