Insanity (Not RR)
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Just had this discussion here at the office and thought I'd see what the response was at SS.Do you as an individual think that if faced with criminal prosecution, military draft, etc. could convince an expert/jury/judge that you were mentally unstable or criminally insane if that was your goal to avoid said consequences?
Comments
Criminal prosecution? much harder.
And awareness is not synonymous with rational understanding. In fact schizophrenia has almost universally been found to fall "woefully short of finding a prisoner so deranged that he is unaware that he is to be put to death." So, even if a condemned prisoner thinks that angels will come down and stop his execution, or that he is being framed by a conspiracy lead by the governor, as long as he is aware that the State's stated reason[/b] for executing him is his conviction for the crime of murder, he's good to go.
I think in Washington, the court has even allowed a prisoner to be medicated up to this level of competency based on the State's power to force-medicate prisoners when necessary to protect the prison population or when its in the prisoner's best health interests. The rationale is that if medicine can help supress a prisoner's mental illness, its less offensive to the 8th Amendment to alleviate the mental illness and execute him than to leave him suffering from a mental illness just to avoid punishment.
There is the scene in 'Big Wednesday' where the surfers go down to the draft board all dolled up as gay hustlers or in Gary Busey's case he tries to make them believe he's totally ape-crazy(not a big stretch for a character called the Masochist). He dowses himself in gasoline, puts a fish down his pants that are held up with bailing twine, and walks in like nothings the matter. He tries to swipe the doctor's lighter, and pitches a fit before they drag him out to an ambulance! The guy who feigns being gay they size up right off, telling him how much he'll love the army, "There's lots of mens there!"
And no, I don't think I could fake it for long. I just saw a TV show about a mob dude who faked being crazy so well that he actually went through a lengthy trial, only to get his cover blown by a pretty sharp psychiatrist in the hospital he was sent to. It took them a long time to trip him up, but he eventually did something that blew his cover.
Shouldn't you be poring over your Egyptian cotton investments?
What's his handle here??
Is that the HiPhOpCaTcH22 guy??
Out of the blue one day, I received a letter that I had to be in some barracks some two weeks later. I went to a lawyer and he said all that I could do was demand a health exam and hope for being able to convince them i was too unhealthy to do duty. I knew I was in trouble because back in those days, I was in really good shape and doing lots of sports. They promptly gave me an appointment for a few days later. I took some days off from work and put myself on a steady day and night diet of one beer every 30 minutes and kept myself from sleeping for 48 hours prior to the appointment by taking handfuls of coffein tabs and amphetamine pills. It was common knowledge that if you'd show up drunk, they'd just ignore this as a desperate attempt to not do duty so about 8 hours before, I stopped drinking beer, left the Amphetamine alone but took even more coffein tabs. I had my girlfriend drive me to the examn and they made me do sit-ups which resulted in me almost fainting and cold sweat running down my forehead. They took my blood pressure etc as well as blood and urine samples. Then they sat me down and asked me some question like what kind of work I'd be good at. What I'd like to do in the army... I tried to give the impression that I'd be very eager to join the force. I only said that I'd prefer to be sent to a camp where they wouldn't have any fags or un-arian folks and how that kind of company would make me angry and provoke violent outbursts. I couldn't do anything against it, this was my nature. I pointed out that I would love violence and how I would love nothing more but learn advanced and brutal coercion techniques and asked if it was true, that there were special commands for these kinds of things. They denied and I reacted with deep disappointment.
They asked me how much alcohol I would normally consume and i said "about half a case of beer a day and a couple of shots in the evening" they said that that would be a lot and i said no, that on my construction job that would be just around average. they asked me if I'd do drugs and I said I had asked my lawyer before and he had told me I was not obliged to answer any questions regarding drugs.
I was told I wouldn't have to show up at the barracks the next week and that I would hear from them. Two months later, I received a letter saying that I'd not hear from them again.
My uncle got out of serving in Vietnam by taking dangerous levels of Asprin, thinning his blood, and then claiming he had the genetic condition where your blood doesn't clot (forget what this is called). All my grandma's idea...worked like a charm.
These days, I think they'd test you much harder if there were a draft...the percentage of people who wouldn't serve would be exponentially higher.
I reckon this would be relatively easy.
You tell them that, for "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing", you prefer Sergio Mendes over Stevie.
Apparently that means "you are out of your motherf*cking mind".
The whole reverse psychology 'i really really really want to join the army because i wanna hurt people' tactic is the icing on the cake.