What’s Wrong with These Pictures?

Dropped by Budgeting in the Fun Stuff today? That crazy dude who tracked down his ex-wife’s sister in Texas and murdered her and five other members of her family was brought to ground in BiFS’s neighborhood. After he executed the couple and all but one of their children, he took off in search of his ex’s mother. The mother and her family were saved only because the critically wounded survivor of the first mass slaying alerted police to his plans.

This guy, Ron Haskell, was batshit crazy. He had abused his wife.  He tied up, choked, and threatened his own mother with death. The mother reported to police that he said he was going to kill her, his ex-wife, and any police officer who tried to stop him. His lawyers propose to argue that he’s mentally incompetent, acting while off his meds. The fact that this man was mad as a hatter and dangerously violent was no secret to anyone who came in contact with him.

So…why was he still loose on the street?

Why? Because we no longer have mental institutions, and we no longer have the will to confine people who clearly represent a threat to others because of obvious, certifiable mental derangement.

I’ll tellya what I think. Officials of the state and of a county in Utah knew this guy was crazy. They knew he was dangerous. They knew he had already harmed his wife and his mother and threatened mayhem right and left. The state of Utah should pay for all the damage this man did in Texas.

Utah taxpayers should pay to clean up the physical mess created by six murders in a Texas home.

They should cover the medical and psychiatric bills for the 15-year-old girl whose family members were shot, one by one, in front of her and who sustained critical injuries.

If she survives those injuries, Utah taxpayers should have to pay to support her for the rest of her life, a life that you can bet has been destroyed — now and evermore. Utah taxpayers should foot the bill for the police and the EMTs who responded to the crime and chased down and cornered the guy.

They should pay for all the security doors and expensive hardened locks the terrified residents of those haunted Texas neighborhoods now feel they should put on their homes, and the bars over their windows, and the burglar alarm systems, and the pistols and shotguns they feel compelled to buy to protect themselves.

They should pay for all the legal bills to prosecute and defend the wretched Mr. Haskell, and they should foot the bill for keeping the bastard in jail for the rest of his natural life or until Texas executes him, whichever comes first.

This pattern has become a tiresome story. We have shut down mental health care in this country — it’s even sadder than our regular physical healthcare — and the result is an unending binge of crazies with guns and knives taking out anyone they feel impelled to take out. Time after time, reports on each new mass killing reveal that someone, somewhere knew the perp was dangerously insane and that nothing was done about it.

And as long as we’re on healthcare in the United States, have you seen this little gem? Questor Pharmaceuticals, one of the Big Pharma corporations that helps to generate funds for the One Percent, has been downplaying the potentially fatal side-effects of a drug called Acthar. In 2001,  Questor purchased rights to Acthar, a so-called “orphan” drug developed to treat a rare medical condition, for $100,000. Since then the company has been aggressively marketing it to treat chronic diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis. In 2007, a 5 ml vial of the stuff cost $1,650.

Exorbitant, you say? You ain’t seen nothin’: today five ml of the drug — .17 ounce, about a teaspoonful — goes for $28,000!

Where, God help us, are the regulators? Yeah. In the same place as the mental institutions: the junk pile.

We need to bring sanity back to the governing of this country.

And we need to make those taxpayers determined to dodge their collective responsibility fiscally responsible for their collective irresponsibility.