Baby, I Got a Plan!

This was my response: Gavin, where did you serve again? Given that you are almost exactly the same age as I am, I would imagine that you served in one of the two Gulf Wars. I have a modest proposal: bearing in mind that I come from a military family, and despise the very idea of an individual impersonating an ex-serviceman, you could come and stay in my late father’s house on the other side of Birmingham and we could drive out to Ladywood and confront this man. We could take film and sound equipment and expose this dissembler for exactly what he is. You name the time and the place will be in my hands.

This will not appear let alone receive any kind of response.

I hope that Gavin responds to me privately with answers to my questions.

Or he may believe, as his psychiatric idol believes that ‘Many servicemen – who appear to have joined up imagining that war was a thing of the past, and that armies are now purely ornamental or a form of disguised unemployment – returned home from the Gulf deeply traumatised psychologically.’ (http://www.gulflink.org/GulfWeb/uk_news/te080397_1.html)

I’d bet my bottom dollar on the latter.

TOMMY
Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint of beer.
The publican ‘e ups an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:

O it’s Tommy this, and Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me.
They sent me to the gallery or ’round the music-’alls.
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! They’ll shove me in the stalls!

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy wait outside”;
But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopships’ on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

Yes, making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.

Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy ‘ow’s your soul?”
But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O, it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints:
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;

While it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy fall be’ind,”
But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.

You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
But it’s “Saviour of his country,” when the guns begins to shoot;
Yes, it’s Tommy this an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!

A Letter to the Lesser Hitchens Brother

Mr. Hitchens,

While elements of your case against anti-depressants may be valid, you are undermining your case by blaming them for just about every terrible thing that happens anywhere on the planet. LIke Scientology and its video on You Tube ‘PSYCHIATRY: THE INDUSTRY OF DEATH’ although even they make some valid points.

I noticed that you mentioned the Hannah Bonser case a few months back in the context of anti-psychotics. (‘She was also prescribed ‘antipsychotic’ drugs, and who knows what effect they may have had?’) If you have read Theodore Dalrymple’s ‘If Symptoms Persist’ he writes about a young woman in the manic phase of her disorder who had (and these are the good doctor’s words, not mine.) ‘taken to hearing voices’ and gloating over the fact that he orders his ‘underlings’ (aka: nurses) to forcibly medicate her ‘in the buttocks’.

I fear for the future of journalism when mere fact checking is interpreted as an ad hominem attack.

In response to this.

…

Murder Victims, You Brought This Upon Yourselves

‘but what goes without saying should surely go unsaid.’ Well, indeed, Doctor. Do you ever think of applying these sagacious words to yourself?

From: The Salisbury Review:

And, as always, his valiant acolytes leap to his defence: http://blog.skepticaldoctor.com/2013/04/04/the-psychobabble-of-murder/#comments

And the attack dogs are unleashed:

Well, that was like being savaged by a dead sheep.

What Should I Do? (Reblog)

Somewhere across the Big Pond they often advise trial lawyers to avoid asking questions of witnesses on the stand unless they are sure of the answer.  A Texan gentleman by the rather peculiar name of Alphonsus Jr. might consider applying such advice to other areas of his life, such as his interactions with complete strangers on the internet.

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/02/11/fat-wars-why-not-personal-responsibility

Alphonsus Jr.

MAR 07, 2013 @ 20:52:02
Your links don’t work.

Incidentally, you appear to be on a crusade against Theodore Dalrymple. I keep seeing you in com boxes speaking against him. Kindly explain.

Incidentally, have you ever hired a surgical hitman to commit surgical infanticide?

If ‘Alphonsus Jr.’ had conducted some research before he asked this rather unpleasant, ungentlemanly question he may have stumbled across my Catholic origins.  I certainly stumbled across his.  Just a word of advice ‘Junior’, abortion is a mortal sin, having oneself tattooed isn’t.

I asked my wise old 95 year old neighbour (ex RAF, paramedic, college porter) Nobby Clarke what I should do.

‘Nobby, some American accused me of committing a mortal sin.  What should I do?”

‘And did you commit this mortal sin?’

‘Why, of course not.’

Brief silence.  And then Nobby said ‘Nothing.’

That man is a genius.  Although you’ll note that I did not follow his advice.

http://dalrymplewatch.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/what-should-i-do/

Apparently my charming interlocutor has a few identities on da web, including:

Jackson K. Esquire:

New Blog Alert

…in which I accuse World Renowned Pseudo Doc Theodore Dalrymple (aka NHS Consultant Psychiatrist “Dr” Anthony Daniels (well, for a rather pitiful decade and a half anyway)) of unleashing a deluge of Pork Pies…

From My Favourite Shrunken Hearted Shrink

This Telegraph article makes little sense.  Dalrymple is using a single case to illustrate his own problem with these kind of cases being dealt with by the courts at all.  (Does he think that perhaps these cases should not be the business of the legal system but of his own specialism: psychiatry?)  Should we never require psychologically vulnerable people to take the stand?  Does that include perpetrators?  And surely the job of ensuring that witnesses are psychologically robust enough to take the stand are members of his own medical specialism: psychiatry.

And yet the main target of his criticism is (as always) the police. He mentions the CPS, of course, but only in passing.  It is the CPS who decide whether or not to launch a prosecution.  A casual glance at police internet fora reveals that the decisions made by the CPS are often a source of much consternation among rank and file members of the police force.

I do not believe I have every seen so many non-sequiturs and red herrings in a single op-ed piece.

What for example is this supposed to mean?

‘The police and CPS, moreover, have been heavily criticised for the low rate of conviction in cases of rape and sexual abuse, often by the very people who, in other circumstances, deny the efficacy or justice of punishment.

Why, after all, should the punishment of sexual abusers have a deterrent effect, but not that of burglars?’

Can he name the people to whom he refers in this passage?

And then of course comes the kind of evidence that Dalrymple relies on to support his often ill thought out theories: a single piece of anecdotal evidence:

‘I recall, for example, the case of a man who was wrongly accused of rape by a woman; the prosecution not only failed to prove the allegation beyond reasonable doubt, but the defence proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was false.

Yet after his release from prison on remand he was treated by those around him as if he were guilty, on the grounds that there was no smoke without fire.’

It is high time that Dalrymple learnt something from the methodology of the historian: that academic discipline has no problem with anecdotal evidence. It does insist, however, on the use of multiple sources.

Incidentally, the good doctor is back in Yeovil again.

He devoted an entire book to that small town in Somerset:

http://www.libertylawsite.org/2013/02/05/a-program-of-integrated-frivolity/

Aimed at Americans, a fact made all too clear by the following: ‘Recently I stayed a few weeks in a small town in Somerset, England called Yeovil, pronounced Yoville.’ (because they are evidently too stupid to work that out for themselves.)  I’m guessing that Wifey Dalrymple is there delivering ECT to the elderly mentalists of ‘the most important town in Somerset’.  She is a geriatric psychiatrist (in more ways than one).  I’m also guessing she’ll be working for a while yet. Fourteen years of service, even in the publicly funded NHS, doesn’t yield a terribly generous pension. Poor old lady hitched her wagon to the wrong star there. I’m thinking maybe an internet wide collection may be in order.

Addendum: This is the place in which Dalrymple acted as a kind of indentured servant to the NHS for fourteen years (some kind of record, surely.)

 

We Are Doomed

Is it the fault of politics?

Nope

The legal profession, as some latter day witchfinders would have us believe?

Sorry, nope

Psychiatry?

Probably: ‘Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected American Society within the last fifty years,” Dr Thomas Szasz, Lifetime Fellow, American Psychiatric Association (APA).

 

Bonfire of the Sotheby Paintings

 

Or “Bonfire of the Inanities”

Now that’s what I call…a seriously dysfunctional family.

“When I was about nine or ten years old my father had a bonfire of Victorian paintings. Like many a person who was inclined by nature to hoard, he sometimes had fits of clearing things out to make space, presumably for something else to accumulate. The paintings shared a loft for several years with crates of tinned fruit that he had bought during the Korean War, in the fear that the conflict would spread and rationing re-introduced. He kept the fruit and got rid of the paintings.”

And the underclass are supposed to be emulating this?

Too funny.

I’m sure I’ve read this somewhere before. Recycling without the environmental benefits.

Oops. I think I offended the good doctor’s top disciples.

I expect to be struck by lightning any time soon.

I have been tried and found guilty in the court of Texan brothers ‘Steve ‘n’ Clint’ and some other bloke who calls himself ‘Gavin’ (Gavin?  Sounds like an eighties football hooligan) of  ‘ad hominem’:

Let us see what the good doctor himself has to say about ad hominem:

Why Intellectuals Like Genocide

Here I confess that I am entering the world of ad hominem.

However, when it comes to the questions of human motivation it is difficult altogether to avoid ad hominem.

Anything Goes

And as ich bin ein untermensch surely I cannot be judged more harshly than the good doctor.

“Is there any attitude more illiberal?”

Possibly but then I’ve never claimed to be anything other than ‘illiberal’.

And who says I’m ‘blaming’ anyone?  I’ve read about this episode before.  In the account that I read poor little nine year old Theodore was sobbing and pleading with his father not to burn the paintings.

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by that.

From Behind the ‘Paywall’ of The Times:

(I’ll remove it if anyone objects.)

Theodore Dalrymple shows us that there is much scope for sadism in the role of prison doctor and how he himself derived much pleasure from this aspect of his role. I suspect that it was almost as much fun as having patients “injected in the buttock” in his primary role as a consultant psychiatrist at an inner-city general hospital in Birmingham. Note that he and the sycophants who surround him have stopped calling it a slum.

Weak doctors leave prisoners hooked on prescription drugs

Theodore Dalrymple: Former Prison Doctor.

The Chief Inspector of Prisons has reported that abuse of prescription drugs in prisons has increased to an alarming extent. I am surprised only that it took him this long to discover it.

By the time I left the prison service after 15 years, I had formulated a rough-and-ready rule: if a prisoner was willing to take medicine, he didn’t need it; and if he wasn’t willing to take it, he did. There were exceptions, of course; but every prison doctor must remember that medication, especially if it has a psychological effect, is coin of the realm in prison. A pill may change hands many times before it is actually taken.

There are several reasons for over-prescription of drugs in prison. Many prisoners arrive already on prescription drugs they don’t need. A high percentage of doctors have been assaulted or threatened by patients in the past 12 months, an even higher percentage in the areas from which most prisoners are likely to come, so doctors are inclined to prescribe potentially aggressive patients what they demand rather than what they need, which in most cases is nothing.

Doctors in prisons feel obliged to continue these prescriptions, partly because doctors do not like to stop other doctors’ prescriptions without deeper knowledge of the patient, and partly because it is easier. To stop a prescription is to court an unpleasant scene, in which the prisoner will accuse the doctor of negligence or worse, threaten to complain, shout and even menace. Not a few prisoners told me that if I did not prescribe the valium they wanted, they would attack or kill a prisoner or a prison officer.

“Let me give you a word of advice,” I would reply.

“What?”

“Don’t.”

They would look in my eye and see that I was not to be moved. Some would laugh, others would be angry with the anger of the justly accused. But it took experience and firmness to resist their blackmail.

Experience and firmness of character were just the qualities the NHS did not seek in its prison doctors when it took over healthcare from the Prison Medical Service. The prescription of codeine and other sought-after drugs shot up without the slightest medical reason.

In the modern world, compassion easily slides into sentimentality and moral cowardice. Doctors like to think that their patients are telling the truth. Prisoners are often not like that; but inexperienced and weak doctors are reluctant to recognise it or be “judgmental”, the worst moral failing in the modern world. And so it is Goldilocks against Genghis Khan.

Face it, Doc, your specialism is about as scientific as witch finding and your methods as sophisticated as the ducking stool.

Addendum: (11.2.2013) In 1994 in an article (an op-ed piece) in The City Journal (an American publication) entitled The Knife Went In  Dalrymple writes: ‘As a doctor who sees patients in a prison once or twice a week, I am fascinated by prisoners’ use of the passive mood and other modes of speech that are supposed to indicate their helplessness. They describe themselves as the marionettes of happenstance.’  Once or twice a week?  Interesting.

 

Sylvia Plath was given ECT without anaesthetic shortly before her first nervous breakdown and suicide attempt. Collective guilt, anyone? Think about it people.

Does That Taste Nice, ‘Doctor’?

Someone is biting the hand that fed him, for many years.  And it still sustains him via his French born wife who is an NHS geriatrician.  Let’s hope his dentures fall out.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dalrymple-british-health-system-20120808,0,7412265.story

The good doctor spent the latter part of his life as a state employee.  Why?  We do have a private sector, one that is particularly friendly to unconventional psychiatrists.  Was he just not good enough?    Did he fear that no one would wish to consume the service he was offering?

His American acolytes should plead with The Greatest Doctor in the Entire Universe to come out of retirement and start a whole new career in the good ole U.S. Of A.  Let’s see how he copes with a more open Market.  Given the litigious nature of the US I’d bet my bottom dollar he’d be in court before you could say ‘Class Action Lawsuit’.

Funny how the American airbases here in the UK never had a problem using the NHS to treat US servicemen.  You’d think they’d want the very best for their armed forces.

Or maybe Dull Rumple’s American apostles share his disdain for the armed forces, illustrated perfectly in an ‘essay’ on Gulf War Syndrome which can be found here:

http://www.gulflink.org/GulfWeb/uk_news/te080397_1.html

‘Many servicemen – who appear to have joined up imagining that war was a thing of the past, and that armies are now purely ornamental or a form of disguised unemployment.’

The right wing ain’t what it used to be, that’s for sure.