[ExI] insanity plea

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 12:08 PM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> Ja agree sir, but you understate your case in an important way.  Just the
> discussion of the possibility of restricting gun ownership to the mentally
> ill would compel the mentally ill to refuse to seek treatment for fear that
> they could lose the ability to purchase a firearm.  With that would soon
> likely go their voting rights and any possibility of gainful employment.

Indeed.  This is a core problem with many attempts to put certain other
people in a special negative class.  The average person can either be
classified - with no real benefit if the classification is correct, and huge
consequences if the classifier messes up - or not classified - in which
case it's the same as if they had a correct, positive classification.

Unsurprisingly, given a choice, most people prefer not to be classified
in this manner.  That's why people call for "privacy" and whatnot: they
want the benefit of the doubt, that they know must be extended to
most people (including the default unclassified) in order to legitimize
the negative classification.