freedom fighter Thomas Szasz, who devoted his life to the opposition of coercive "medical" treatments & the infanitilization of American citizens by their government, died on Sep. 8, 2012, presumably from an overdose of secobarbital + some painkillers. and perhaps also some other pills of which he once said "that he would use when he needed to take his death into his own hands"
-http://www.szasz.com/szaszdeath.htm
approx. 11 months earlier, on Oct. 15, 2011, "suicide prohibition - the shame of medicine", aka. his last book, was published. the topic, as one might guess, is suicide. not primarily methods, but the, in his opinion, and in my opinion, pathetic way of dealing with this subject by modern society of the medical state.
here are some excerpts... "although the deleterious economic and social consequences of irresponsible procreation are demonstrably greater than the deleterious consequences of irresponsible suicide, we treat the opportunity to procreate, but not the opportunity to practice death control*, as if it were an inalienable right" p.2 * = death control as in: being able to control one's own departure
"noone can prevent a person who wants to kill himself from doing so. everyone knows that. this has not deterred modern societies from entrusting psychiatrists with the duty of preventing suicide and psychiatrists from accepting and embracing this responsibility" p.7
"the transformation of self-killing from a deliberate act into the unintended consequence of a disease (of the brain) is an integral part of the pseudoscience of psychiatry and the vast influential institutions of social control that rest on its claims called "theories" and coercions called "treatments"" p.10-11
"psychiatrists and psychoanalysts agree, and have always agreed, in their opposition to relating to "patients" as competent adults, and for similar reasons, albeit differently formulated: psychiatrists, because they view the mentally ill as more or less incompetent; psychoanalysts, because they view everyone, except themselves, as puppets of their unconscious impulses" p.16
"regulating how and when we may kill ourselves is an idea that never occured even to the most power-mad despots of the ancient world. it has occured to modern medical despots" p.41
"American psychiatry's founding father, Benjamin Rush, was a medical despot of the first rank. he maintained, "the extensive influence which these opinions (excess of passion for liberty) had upon the understandings, passions, and morals of many of the citizens of the United States, constituted a form of insanity" and proposed, "were we to live our lives over again and engage in the same benevolent enterprise, our means should not be reasoning but bleeding, purging, low diet, and the tranquilizing chair"" p.42
"paradoxically, psychiatrists - more than other medical specialists - emphasize the importance of having confidential, trusting relations with patients. yet, psychiatrists - more than other doctors - do not trust their patients and are not trusted by them" p.42
"physicians who deprive individuals of the freedom to kill themselves call what they do "suicide prevention". regardless of what they actually do, physicians like to define themselves as helpers and like to be so defined by the society they serve [...] rarely, a physician acknowledges that what he or she actually does and loves to do is excercise power over powerless persons" p.46
"there is no evidence that suicide prevention prevents suicide. psychiatrists and psychiatric hospitals are regurarly sued and found liable for patient suicides. psychiatrists kill themselves at three times the rate of the general public" p.69
"interpreted as a kind of emigration, the suicide decides to move from the land of the living to the land of the dead. viewed as a kind of secession, the suicide chooses to firmly seperate himself from his family and society" p.77
"in the traditional religious world-view, the sole agent with legitimate power to decide who should live and who should die is God, the Creator. in the modern medical view, the sole such agent is the therapeutic state. secession - defiance of control by church, state, medicine - is the ultmate escape from oppression, the ultimate declaration of freedom" p.79-80
"in the myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus famously declares, "there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide". seventy years later, everyone knows that suicide is a psychiatric emergency, not a philosophical problem" p.104
""the time is out of joint - o cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right" soliloquizes Hamlet. for the lover of liberty and responsibility, the time always seems out of joint" p.105
