Bush and the summer time blues
As a good friend of mine, and incidentally yours, highlighted to me yesterday, within the confines of this administration Compassionate Conservatism is equivalent to
Liberal Fiscal Posturing. Sure enough, it took only hours to provide me with a fresh example.
Next month, the Bush Administration is set to unveil its new mental health initiative. The eventual goal of this program is to screen the entire citizenry for mental illnesses and treat those diagnosed with "expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration".
As any good citizen would do, I asked myself if this is a responsibility of the state. Mental health screening is a voluntary medical procedure. As such, it is the duty of the person considering screening to determine the advantage of such a course (if the person is a dependent, then it falls to the custodian), not that of the state. In effect, this positions the federal government as quasi-custodian to all of us, a condition with which any conservative should find visceral disagreement.
