Free Republic

I am sorry to report that Thomas Szasz, the great libertarian critic of coercive psychiatry, the "therapeutic state," and the war on drugs, died over the weekend at his home in Manlius, New York. He was 92.

Article is in PDF format. Quotes: "The welfare subsidy on single-mother homes was never really ended so much as it was shifted. Reformers essentially replaced welfare with child support, on the reasonable but largely irrelevant principle that fathers rather than taxpayers should be supporting their children (which is irrelevant for reasons we will see)." "Child support thus transformed welfare from public assistance into law enforcement, creating a federal plainclothes police force with no clear constitutional authority." "Perhaps the most striking aspect of this mobilization is that the initiative came entirely from government officials. No public outcry ever preceded these measures,...

Man says stress of child support led to bank robbery The lawyer for a Carson City man charged with bank robbery says financial pressures of paying child support led to his actions. Forty-five year old Paul Pasillas pleaded guilty Monday in Carson City District Court to robbing the First National Bank of Nevada with a pellet gun on March 10th. He faces up to 15 years in prison when sentenced next month by District Judge Michael Griffin. State Public Defender Steve McGuire says Pasillas was in financial straits after falling behind in child support payments and trying to provide...

PSYCHOANALYSIS AS A WEAPON by Murray N. Rothbard (This article was a keynote address given by the late economist Murray N. Rothbard at a special conference sponsored by The Institute for Humanistic Studies, State University of New York at Albany, M.E. Grenander, Director, April 17-19, 1980. The conference was entitled _Asclepius At Syracuse: Thomas Szasz, Libertarian Humanist_. Rothbard's comments are excerpted from pp. 333-350 of the conference proceedings.) Thomas Szasz is justly honored for his gallant and courageous battle against the compulsory commitment of the innocent in the name of "therapy" and humanitarianism. But I would like to focus tonight...