Hunter has a diary up on the frontpage ("Liberals are from Mars, Conservatives are from Bellevue") about a "survey" done in Connecticut that concluded that the mentally ill who are psychotic tended to vote for Bush in 2004.
And, being a diary by Hunter, it provoked a lot of comments. Really penetrating comments like "psychos vote for psychos", and "people with mental problems call everyone else "crazy". One commenter wondered whether the mentally ill should be ALLOWED to vote. One commenter had made up his or her mind, saying:
And by the way, somehow I just don't think it's a very good idea to get mentally ill people to vote. If I were crazy, I'd want my family to stop me from doing potentially stupid acts. If you aren't fit to stand trial for a criminal act, you aren't fit to vote.
Mentally ill people were called "whackjobs", "wackos", and "nutjobs", in addition to the "psychos" reference. A few commenters told of a personal experience with some person who said they were voting for Bush, and that person acted strangely, or spewed gibberish, so of course, that person must have been mentally ill. There were some references to "institutionalization", even though the diary states that these people were OUTPATIENTS. There were a lot of sweeping generalizations about the mentally ill, and too many remarks that showed an appalling amount of ignorance.
Mental illness comes in many forms, and they can differ in severity and duration. I am bipolar. I take medication for it. It limits my activities in certain ways. I have, without a doubt, a mental illness that cannot be cured. But I have voted for Democrats for decades. I have voted in every election. I have worked on campaigns, too numerous to mention. So, you see, I am just as competent to vote as many of you (actually, more so, since I know what's wrong with me, unlike you clueless ones that I prefer to call the "undiagnosed").
Now here's the thing: If this "study" had been about 69 women with blonde hair, or people who were overweight (the fatter you are, the more you voted for Bush, right?), or Poles, or African-Americans, this site would have been up in arms. Remember the "Pie Wars"? Such a story would have made the front page, but not because anyone thought it was funny. But what it is about the topic of mentally illness that causes intelligent, well-read people to turn into neanderthals? Hunter started it with "Conservatives are from Bellevue". You know what? I've been in a psych ward and it wasn't funny, then.
If you feel a tinge of guilt or remorse now, then there is hope for you yet.