Who Is a Mormon?

As a long-time reader and supporter of The Freeman, I express my enjoyment in reading the articles by Dr. Thomas Szasz. I appreciate his critical thinking and his skill in constructing the written word in a most efficient and powerful style.

However, I take issue with part of his December 2009 article, “The Shame of Medicine: Conviction by Psychiatry.” He states that Brian David Mitchell is a “devout Mormon.” The word Mormon is a nickname for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Given that Dr. Szasz claims to have obtained his facts “as reported in the press,” he apparently did not bother to read the reports of Mr. Mitchell having been excommunicated from the Church well before the Elizabeth Smart saga. He therefore was not and is not a “Mormon” at all, let alone a devout one. Whatever Mr. Mitchell is devoted to, it is obviously not the practices or teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which openly speaks out against child abuse in any of its forms, whose tenets deny the validity of self-appointments to the ministry, and which believes in obeying and sustaining the laws of the land without exception.

My statements are easily verified at http://tinyurl.com/byx5zv and http://tinyurl.com/
yb2qyso.

So Mr. Mitchell was denied his day in court. If that is a failure of the legal system and of psychiatry, Dr. Szasz’s attempt to vilify Elizabeth Smart is unfair.

The Freeman is great. Our country needs it now more than ever. Keep up the good work.

Thomas Szasz replies:

I thank Mr. Clegg for his kind words about my Freeman columns. His letter highlights the inherently and pervasively rhetorical character of everyday language.

Understandably, Mr. Clegg is concerned that the Smart story casts Mormonism in a poor light, an unavoidable consequence of any reference to it. My comments had nothing to do with the Mormon or any other religion. A Hungarian proverb wisely cautions, “If it’s not your shirt, don’t put it on.”

Every act of classifying a person—as Mormon or Muslim or atheist or whatever—enhances his or her image in the minds of some and diminishes it in the minds of others. Accuracy and fairness require that the writer inform the reader whether the classificatory category is an identity the subject assumes voluntarily or is one that the writer or others attribute to him. I should have characterized Mitchell as a “self-styled devout Mormon.”

Mr. Clegg asserts that because the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints had excommunicated Mitchell, “He therefore was not and is not a ‘Mormon.’ . . .” Was Baruch Spinoza, famous in part for having been “excommunicated” (an act for which there is no authority in Jewish law), not a Jew?

Characterizing Mitchell’s excommunication as having occurred “well before the Elizabeth Smart saga” is also an overstatement. From the evidence available, it is not clear when the excommunication occurred, not that it matters for the subject of my column. (See the official website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as well as www.tinyurl.com/ycfhwsl and www.tinyurl.com/yb2beda).

Mr. Clegg’s conclusion requires close attention. He states: “So, Mr. Mitchell was denied his day in court. If that is a failure it is a failure of the legal system and of psychiatry. Dr. Szasz’s attempt to vilify Elizabeth Smart is unfair.” I neither vilify nor glorify Ms. Smart. I am skeptical about her belated account of her life in “captivity,” as I am skeptical about nearly everything else about this baroque tale.

Mr. Clegg does not question my claim that “Mitchell was denied his day in court” and attributes that outcome to “a failure of the legal system and of psychiatry.” Institutional systems are set in motion and are operated by individuals with their own agendas. These individuals are moral agents responsible for their actions.

Calling the denial of Mitchell’s Sixth Amendment rights an institutional “failure” misses the point I have long tried to make: namely, that “therapeutic jurisprudence”—the name given to the psychiatric subversion of the law by persons who approve of that arrangement—is inherently flagitious.

Kudos to Stossel

I would like to congratulate John Stossel [regarding his] point on competition saving medicine (“Competition Would Save Medicine, Too,” September). I am living proof that this works. In 1996 I moved my family to a high-deductible catastrophic policy that did not include baby delivery (rightfully so, the insurance doesn’t see this as a medical accident; we know where babies come from).

Already having four children, my wife and I didn’t see any reason to stop. For child #5, I went to each of the hospitals in the area (there were two) and explained that we had no insurance for deliveries and would prepay for a reasonable amount. Well, the hospital closest to our home agreed to our use of the labor and delivery facility, the nursing staff, and a 24-hour stay for $350 (which was probably more than they got paid by Medicaid or insurance). We negotiated a trade with the Ob/Gyn to do the delivery. The surprise was the prime rib dinners we each enjoyed after the baby was born—a special the hospital was promoting to attract more deliveries.

For #6, we hired a midwife and had the baby at home. For me, that was the most fantastic of all six deliveries I’d attended; [my wife] delivered our son sitting on my knees while I sat on the edge of the bed. At ten minutes old, he was in bed with his mom and his brothers. (As a side note, the Ob/Gyn who cared for her had to dismiss her as a patient before the midwife delivery as a requirement of his malpractice insurance).

Having this high-deductible, catastrophic policy has proven a boon for me and the health care industry. Incidentally, I have changed jobs three times since I got it, and each time, after I had negotiated my salary, I got an additional $500 or $600 per month in compensation for not taking the employer’s insurance.
—George Schwappach
Dade City, Fla.