All Posts Tagged With: "Thomas Szasz"
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If mind is brain, there is no “psychological” freedom or responsibility — no humanity. And if those don’t exist, there can be no political freedom or self-responsibility. What does not exist cannot be violated.
11Nov2011 | Sheldon Richman | 58 comments | ContinuedAsk Not For Whom the Drug Tolls
“Fifty years ago, it made sense to assert that mental illnesses are not diseases, but it makes no sense to say so today. Debate about what counts as mental illness has been replaced by legislation about the medicalization and demedicalization of behavior. Old diseases such as homosexuality and hysteria disappear. New diseases such as gambling [...]
22Dec2010 | Wendy McElroy | 13 comments | ContinuedAntipsychiatry: Quackery Squared
In this latest work, Freeman columnist Thomas Szasz fires another salvo in his continuing critique of the disasters wrought by contemporary psychiatry—specifically its penchant for coercive pseudomedical interventions that masquerade as treatment while depriving people of their liberty. Here, however, the focus is more specific, with Szasz providing the definitive critique of what has erroneously [...]
22Sep2010 | Ron Roberts | 4 comments | ContinuedFaith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices
Thomas Szasz, a Freeman columnist and a long-time libertarian hero, thinks that many other libertarian luminaries are slacking on the job. Szasz has fought his intellectual and legal battles for individual liberty—always paired with responsibility—in a particularly contentious arena: the struggle over rights for the so-called mentally ill. Szasz wonders why so many other prominent [...]
13Jul2010 | Brian Doherty | 1 comment | ContinuedAntifederalists Vindicated
If the Antifederalists were still on the scene today, they might be saying — as they would have been saying right along — “Told you so.”
21May2010 | Sheldon Richman | 15 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
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 [...]
24Mar2010 | mnolan | 2 comments | ContinuedBoudreaux Wins Szasz Award
Freeman columnist and George Mason University economics professor Donald Boudreaux has won the 2009 Thomas Szasz Award for Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties. The Szasz Award committee recognized Boudreaux for his many years of promoting freedom in all its aspects through his writing and lecturing.Boudreaux, who was FEE’s president from 1997 to 2001, [...]
13Oct2009 | Sheldon Richman | 9 comments | ContinuedSzasz on Universal Health Care
Freeman columnist Thomas Szsaz blows the lid off the healthcare debate in this Wall Street Journal op-ed. Bottom line: If we persevere in our quixotic quest for a fetishized medical equality we will sacrifice personal freedom as its price. We will become the voluntary slaves of a “compassionate” government that will provide the same low [...]
15Jul2009 | Sheldon Richman | 1 comment | ContinuedBook Reviews – October 2008
Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism by Jörg Guido Hülsmann Ludwig von Mises Institute • 2007 • 1143 pages • $50.00 Reviewed by Bettina Bien Greaves Biographer Guido Hülsmann has written a magnificent book, describing in detail not only the life of Ludwig von Mises, but also his writings, his intellectual development, and his importance. [...]
1Oct2008 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedCapital Letters
Were Missionaries Like Psychiatrists? To the Editor: People have misunderstood and maligned Christians for two millennia, but goodness, must Dr. Szasz compare us to coercive quacks? He writes in The Freeman’s July/August 2007 issue: “Consider this parallel between psychiatry and missionary Christianity. The heathen savage does not suffer from lack of insight into the divinity [...]
1Nov2007 | Thomas Szasz | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Reviews – April 2004
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire by Claes G. Ryn Transaction Publishers • 2003 • 221 pages • $34.95 Reviewed by Richard Ebeling In 1988 Robert Nisbet, one of America’s most prominent sociologists and conservative social philosophers, published The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America. He critically [...]
1Apr2004 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedPharmacracy: Medicine and Politics in America
This review was commissioned over a year ago. I was looking forward to writing it. But then the depression began. Stress. A new job. A major move. A new marriage. I felt unfocused, obviously not in a condition to write a review of an important new book. Many psychiatrists would have no problem diagnosing my [...]
1Aug2002 | Ross Levatter | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
What Is “Mental Illness”? To the Editor: [The March column opposing insurance parity for psychiatric treatment by] Thomas Szasz . . . shocked and disappointed me. . . . Any close relative (myself included) of a person who was formerly seriously mentally ill—with all the unwanted auditory and visual cacophony—and was returned to normal rational [...]
1Jul2002 | FEE Admin | 0 comments | ContinuedCapital Letters
Live by the Stats, Die by the Stats To the Editor: Regarding Mark Skousen’s column, “Chicago Gun Show,” in the October 1999 issue of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty the statistical arguments advanced by the Chicago school allegedly demonstrating gun ownership reduces violent crime are methodologically flawed. Though I am a proud gun owner and [...]
1Jan2000 | FEE Admin | 1 comment | Continued-
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