Communist China and the Soviet Union successfully labeled political dissent as mental illness. As recently as the times of Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used to disable and remove from society political opponents. The Soviets had a name for this “mental illness”— “philosophical intoxication.” Treatment was offered in Siberian labor camps, facilitated by grueling labor.
Now comes this: Sen. Ron Johnson is suggesting that Sen. John McCain’s pivotal vote on health care was the product of a mental disorder brought on by his brain cancer. Let’s just call Sen. Johnson for what he is—a worthy heir to the cruelest political regimes that labeled disagreement as a form of mental illness.
I encountered similar treatment at the hands of a Breitbart reader who took exception to my interview in the Chicago Tribune on illegal immigration.
Written by Paul D. Talbott, President of TCI, Inc., the email stated: “Mike, Tens of millions of us in this country are fed up with liberal jackasses like you. People who enter this country illegally are illegal aliens. Seek help. Liberalism is a mental disorder. ”
Denigrating science, the media, judges, the Congressional Budget Office, professors-- it all fits the pattern: slash and burn institutions that do not advance your agenda. If you can't win on the facts, bury the evidence, and label your opponents mentally ill. 
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