Quote:
Originally Posted by William Reid
Finally, this is the Law & Ethics forum. If you want to argue diagnostic research, you might want to try a different venue.
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Nay, this here thread is quintessential to Law & Ethics for the reasons stated. Our forefathers endowed us with the privilege to opt to defend ourselves publicly before a jury of our peers, in the light of the evidence, against any State accusations. But that right can be summarily recinded if a shrink says the individual is 'incompetent'. My objections are concise, and they are twofold. (1) If you can morally try a person in absentia, which is sometimes done, then you can morally try a person who is incompetent. (2) If the accused individual can prove by a comprehensive written exam that he/she can distinuguish Right from Wrong, and that he/she possesses consummate mental acuity, knowledge and wits; then there is
NO reason whatsoever to interlope further, injecting some mortal's subjective evaluations,
which may be biased. I am INDIGNANT that you would have me
barter for my US.Constitutional right to due process, with some shameless self-important pseudoscientist. That IS tyranny, IS despotism.
edit: If you had to evaluate this individual ((PHOTO OF MAN IN MUSCLE SHIRT DELETED -- WHR)) for fitness to stand trial for some stupid (trumped up?) misdemeanor harrassment charge; would you tend to see him as some loose cannon Hell's Angels wannabe, or would you recognize him as one the nation's leading authorities on Cosmology, hmmm?