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Trump Undermines Theresa May

If trump were to undergo an examination he would have to provide his consent to the medical examiners.

If trump refuses to give consent, and if doctors are concerned about his mental condition, then the doctors would be in a ethical dilemma

If Trump were a patient you'd have a point, but he's not so you don't.
 
Very good. I was being a smartass trying to get across the idea that things have changed in that half century until that. Any professional can tell far far more about the mental stability of Trump from all that is publicly available on him that can routinely be gleamed from a first time fifty minute face to face session.

Incorrect.

See "Id, ego, and super ego".
 
I am listening to the press conference. It seems they accomplished what they set out to do.
Off Topic:
I hear it too. Trump said when he meets with Putin, he's going to "ask him the question." What question? "Can I blow you?" That's about all that Putin hasn't gotten from Trump.
No need to get vulgar.
Was my remark really any more proletarian than what we've witnessed and heard from Trump and Trumpkins since 2015? I dare say not.

Do my words allude not to Trump's obsequiousness towards Putin? Indeed they do just that. And that man yet has the gall to demean our closest and longest standing allies...every one of them -- Canada, the UK, Germany and France. Every one of them! Hell, he says nicer things about Putin than he as about some other Americans. That is what's vulgar.
If we are just as vulgar, what place do we have criticizing anyone?
Red:
Part I -- Analysis of hypocrisy:
Nobody's argument/conclusion is invalid merely because the claimant is a hypocrite. To wit:​

Smoker Dad Example:
A: You shouldn’t smoke, son. It’s bad for your health, and it’s addictive.
B: Look at you, dad! You smoke, too! You don’t have the right to lecture me.​

Analysis:​


  • [*=1]Does the fact that "Dad A" smokes have anything to do with whether smoking is addictive and bad for "Son B's" health? No.
    [*=1]Analogize the dialectical situation with Smoker Dad.

    • [*=1]A says that given the connection between smoking and health problems and addiction, B shouldn’t smoke.
      [*=1]B points out to A that A nevertheless smokes.
      [*=1]A, then, is revealed as someone who holds that people shouldn’t smoke but who also smokes.
      [*=1]A is revealed as someone who cannot help but do something he holds as wrong or bad. This is the hallmark of addiction- -- A, presumably, even holds that A shouldn’t smoke, but A nevertheless smokes. Contrary to B’s thought that A’s smoking undermines A’s case that B shouldn’t smoke, it strengthens it.
The fact that a speaker is a hypocrite doesn't invalidate their point if their point is logically sound/cogent. It merely makes them hypocrites who have/utter logically sound/cogent conclusions/arguments. One can despise the hypocrite for being a hypocrite, but one cannot soundly reject the hypocrite's argument on account of the speaker's being a hypocrite. Hypocrites' arguments can only be soundly/cogently assailed for the lack of rationality in the argument itself.​

Review my recrimination (blue text) to which you responded, "No need to get vulgar." You may be accurate in asserting the absence of such a need, but for your assertion to be accurate, you must show Cavazza and Guidetti's findings are wholly malapropos to my rhetorical objective for using the phrasing I chose. I'm not going to defend whether the remark I made is or isn't vulgar; I will defend the rhetorical aptness of the phrasing I used. (You'll note that my retort asked whether my remark was "any more vulgar," not whether it is or isn't vulgar.)
 
Partisanship has got nothing to do with the APA's ethics standards. Your flailing haymarket, stop digging.

It is crucial to your posts and the ideology behind it.
 
Incorrect.

See "Id, ego, and super ego".

How does that little quip refute the reality that in todays world a person has access to a mountain of revealing information from Trump - much of it in his own words revealing who he is?
 
How does that little quip refute the reality that in todays world a person has access to a mountain of revealing information from Trump - much of it in his own words revealing who he is?

You have a mountain of projection. Again, see id, ego, and super ego.
 
Tell that to the 27 expert mental health professionals who wrote the book identifying Trump as mentally ill. I suspect they know a hell of a lot more about the entire subject that you do.

That's a false appeal to authority, haymarket, and I don't understand why you keep bringing this up. So long as you do, I'll keep reminding readers of the Goldwater Rule [bolding mine]:

The Goldwater rule is the informal name given to Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics, which states that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements. It is named after presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

The issue arose in 1964 when Fact published the article "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater". The magazine polled psychiatrists about U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president. The editor, Ralph Ginzburg, was sued for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg where Goldwater won $75,000 (approximately $592,000 today) in damages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule
 
That's a false appeal to authority, haymarket, and I don't understand why you keep bringing this up. So long as you do, I'll keep reminding readers of the Goldwater Rule:

The Goldwater rule is the informal name given to Section 7 in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Principles of Medical Ethics, which states that it is unethical for psychiatrists to give a professional opinion about public figures whom they have not examined[further explanation needed] in person, and from whom they have not obtained consent to discuss their mental health in public statements. It is named after presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

The issue arose in 1964 when Fact published the article "The Unconscious of a Conservative: A Special Issue on the Mind of Barry Goldwater". The magazine polled psychiatrists about U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater and whether he was fit to be president. The editor, Ralph Ginzburg, was sued for libel in Goldwater v. Ginzburg where Goldwater won $75,000 (approximately $592,000 today) in damages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule

Actually it is called using expert opinion of trained and experienced professionals in the field of mental health to support a claim and there is nothing false about it.

Every person who appeared in that book knows what the Goldwater rule is. And they have made a choice that their Duty to Warn the American people is more important and overrides that Goldwater Rule.
 
It is crucial to your posts and the ideology behind it.

Oh good lord haymarket, my ideology has nothing to do with the unethical and improbability of mental health professionals diagnosing mental disorders correctly from afar.
 
May is undermining herself by not understanding what her people want.
 
Oh good lord haymarket, my ideology has nothing to do with the unethical and improbability of mental health professionals diagnosing mental disorders correctly from afar.

What you call unethical is what others would term PATRIOTIC. These brave men and women have placed country and its people above some rule. The fact that you do not view their actions as patriotic is because of your political ideology.
 
What you call unethical is what others would term PATRIOTIC. These brave men and women have placed country and its people above some rule. The fact that you do not view their actions as patriotic is because of your political ideology.

So now the APA is unpatriotic ?? Do tell ??
 
So now the APA is unpatriotic ?? Do tell ??

I never said they were.

Can you explain why you see it necessary to intentionally misinterpret what I have said in the silly attempt to score some points for yourself?

That is not what I would term honest debate.
 
I never said they were.

Can you explain why you see it necessary to intentionally misinterpret what I have said in the silly attempt to score some points for yourself?

That is not what I would term honest debate.

Oh stop haymarket, the APA lists diagnosis from afar as unethical, you claim diagnosis from afar is patriotic, that leads to the conclusion the APA is unpatriotic.

The rest of your post is childishness.
 
Oh stop haymarket, the APA lists diagnosis from afar as unethical, you claim diagnosis from afar is patriotic, that leads to the conclusion the APA is unpatriotic.

The rest of your post is childishness.

And patriotic people who are mental health professionals have made a personal judgment that the USA and its people are far more important than any politically motivated rule that would silence them from warning the nation about a madman in the White House.

Your sensitivity to fair criticism of your unfair tactics is noted as revealing and telling.
 
Calling one's political opponent mad is easy and cheap. Much easier than addressing reality, like, for example, that Mr Trump wants to STRENGTHEN NATO by shaming rich countries like Germany to spend more on defence. Mr Trump has the habit of blurting out embarassing - to entrenched political elites - truths. Highly commendable.

Both May and Merkel are in a bad way; anything that helps put us out of their misery is all to the good. Both have betrayed their respective countries. May's name deserves to stand alongside Quisling's as a synonym for 'tratitor' and the sooner her disastrous premiership comes to an end the better.
Hmmm, you can call it strengthening NATO and maybe you are right that Germany and others need to pay more for defense. But there is absolutely nothing to support the idea that Trump would ever utilize a strengthened NATO in a way that would be helpful to the United States. At a time when defense against Russia is needed more than ever, he is pretending like it is not a problem. So "addressing reality," as you put it, he is weakening the U.S.'s position in a very serious way by antagonizing important allies and opening the door to Putin.
 
And patriotic people who are mental health professionals have made a personal judgment that the USA and its people are far more important than any politically motivated rule that would silence them from warning the nation about a madman in the White House.

Your sensitivity to fair criticism of your unfair tactics is noted as revealing and telling.

Their personal judgment is based on assumptions and not fact. The APA wrote that in to their code of ethics for obvious reasons and it wasn't politics.

The rest of your post is irrelevant.
 
Their personal judgment is based on assumptions and not fact. The APA wrote that in to their code of ethics for obvious reasons and it wasn't politics.

The rest of your post is irrelevant.

Obviously you do not know what you are talking about as if you had read the book THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP by 27 top mental health professionals, you would soon discover that it is jammed packed with more facts than you could count up.

So your claim is simply wrong.
 
Part I of II

Tell that to the 27 expert mental health professionals who wrote the book identifying Trump as mentally ill. I suspect they know a hell of a lot more about the entire subject that you do.

That's a false appeal to authority, haymarket....
Actually, it's not a "false appeal to authority." Appeals to authority are fallacious (unsound/incogent) if they rely upon an irrelevant authority relateive to the point argued. (Click here and see "Exception" section.) What Haymarket has done is defer to authority to support his comments re: Trump's mental state and the appeal/deference is legitimate. Expertise, however, has limits. To wit:
  • It is absurd/irrational to defer or appeal to, say, a veterinarian input on most matters unrelated to animal science. A vet's pronouncements on such a matters, and that are bereft a full and sound/cogent argument, have no more weight than the pronouncements of any other comparably well educated non-expert on the same matters.
  • It is reasonable to defer to a vet's pronouncements on, say, a matter of certain chemical, physical and biological phenomena, but not all such phenomena, because such things operate consistently across myriad applications. That said, there is a limit the extent to which a vet may, with the force of expertise, extrapolate his/her depictions/understanding of such phenomena and, in turn, pontificate.
  • A vet is a fine expert on the physiology and structure of extant animals, but far less so on extinct ones or on the evolution of extinct ones into extant ones.
  • For all his training and expertise, a vet is no expert at all on, say, art, economics, and a host of topics.
The preceding illustrates (not enumerates) the notion that the expertise of any given expert is limited.

Because expertise has scope limits, there is no doubt that the "distant" analysis of mental health professionals is not as strong as a formally performed analysis. That said, unless and until the subject in question submits to and authorizes disclosure of his/her examination, that "distant" analysis is the best information members of the general public have for forming their own conclusions about the mental status of the subject in question.

The subject tangentially related to this thread is Trump's mental status and, insofar as he's the most powerful and influential servant of the American people, the status of his mental health is something in which the public has a legitimate interest. You know as well as I that he's not going to release the details of any mental status evaluation (he won't even release his tax returns and he lies about things as basic as his own name).

As goes the mental assessment Trump underwent, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA), well, I dare say a 10-year-old could earn a perfect score on it (click the link to see the instructions).

The-performance-of-this-patient-on-the-Montreal-Cognitive-Assessment.png

The purpose of the MOCA is to distinguish the nature and extent of cognitive impairment (mild or more); however, the MOCA is used subsequent to a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Thus the applicability of even administering the MOCA depends on there being a reason to administer the MMSE. Who are the apt subjects of the MMSE? "Older, community dwelling, hospitalized and institutionalized adults." That isn't Trump, so using the MOCA (and MMSE) isn't even relevant, yet it's the test he was given. Most importantly, however, nobody who matters asserts his mental malady is cognitive impairment of the sort the MMSE/MOCA diagnose, but rather that he has a psychopathy.

(cont'd due to char. limit)
 
Part II of II (cont'd due to char. limit)

Full text: The Dangerous Case Of Donald Trump by Bandy Lee
Although no firm conclusions should be ventured or considered possible without detailed, firsthand knowledge or examination of President Trump, categorizations of him that have been suggested have included narcissism, psychopathic deviance, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. D...What is important is not a specific diagnosis but, rather, understanding the behavior patterns that raise concerns about mental status and that affect policy decisions and public welfare.
What one observes from the above passage is that Dr. Lee and others have neither formed nor proffered firm conclusions about Trump's mental state. In other words, they've not delivered a diagnosis. Even as they have not, people have conflated their remarks with a diagnosis.

Some psychiatrists have expressed professional concern about Trump’s public remarks and behaviors and public safety implications due to Trump's role and power as POTUS. Lee and her coauthors clearly take themselves to be fulfilling the moral obligation of Section 7 of the American Psychiatric Association [APA] The Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry (PMEAP) by using their specific expertise as mental health professionals.

End.
 
Actually it is called using expert opinion of trained and experienced professionals in the field of mental health to support a claim and there is nothing false about it.

Every person who appeared in that book knows what the Goldwater rule is. And they have made a choice that their Duty to Warn the American people is more important and overrides that Goldwater Rule.

Yes, they know what the Goldwater Rule is...and don't care, which speaks to their own lack of professionalism. I realize that what they're saying pleases you and fits your own narrative, but that doesn't change the fact that none of them has ever examined Trump and that they're being terrifically unprofessional.
 
What you call unethical is what others would term PATRIOTIC. These brave men and women have placed country and its people above some rule. The fact that you do not view their actions as patriotic is because of your political ideology.

So now the APA is unpatriotic ?? Do tell ??
I never said they were.

Can you explain why you see it necessary to intentionally misinterpret what I have said in the silly attempt to score some points for yourself?

That is not what I would term honest debate.

Oh stop haymarket, the APA lists diagnosis from afar as unethical, you claim diagnosis from afar is patriotic, that leads to the conclusion the APA is unpatriotic.

The rest of your post is childishness.
Red:
Section 7 of the American Psychiatric Association [APA] The Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry reads, “A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.” The point of Section 7 is all physicians have a duty to promote public health and safety. The AMA principle does not specifically oblige physicians to whistle-blowing or impose a “duty to warn” of the sort Lee and her colleagues take themselves to have, but it commits a physician with a concern about local environmental pollutants, safety in schools, infectious disease transmission,or other public dangers to notifying others of the risk. Protecting public health and safety is part of the ethical commitments physicians make.

The problem is that psychiatric diagnostic terminology has been colloquialized, so the public and the press use it to describe Trump, but when a psychiatrist does so, use of the same words is considered to be a formal diagnosis, regardless of whether it is. As a result, psychiatrists are the only members of the citizenry who may not express concern about the mental health of the president using psychiatric diagnostic terminology.

Truly, however, a physician who hasn't formally evaluated a patient is not making a diagnosis in the medical sense, but rather positing informally, based on his/her education/experience, about what s/he sees. That characterization applies to the orthopedist or physical medicine specialist remarking on a knee injury of a football player limping off the field, or the dermatologist wincing at a stranger’s melanoma in the grocery line as well as to the psychiatrist interpreting Trump’s public statements. Physicians don’t leave their knowledge on a shelf in their clinics.

Clinical psychiatric terms have joined the vernacular; thus the question is whether psychiatrists are the ones we should hear it from. If one is to have any measure of reasonable understanding of the nature of risk we all face (or don't, depending on the nature of the remarks the psychiatrist(s) make), the answer must be "yes," for no one else (other than psychologists) is in a position to credibly sound the alarm.

I suppose for cursory conclusion formers, one's reminding them of the Goldwater Rule and simply stating it will do; however, more rigorous thinkers will find such a banal depiction and analysis insufficient because the Rule itself (1) pertains to something other than the potential accuracy of any remarks a psychiatrist might make but rather with the ethicality of making certain types of remarks -- ethicality/unethicality has no bearing on the factual or probabilistic accuracy of a claim about or description of an existential state of being, (2) is an annotation to a principle, not a proscription of the principle itself, (3) was modified on the Ides of March 2017, and (4) the document to which Haymarket refers and in which several psychiatrists' have offered their thoughts about the nature of Trump's personality, complies with the constraints of the 2017 revision. Thus nobody has from afar diagnosed anyone and the ethical mores of the APA have been complied with.
 
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Red:
Section 7 of the American Psychiatric Association [APA] The Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry reads, “A physician shall recognize a responsibility to participate in activities contributing to the improvement of the community and the betterment of public health.” The point of Section 7 is all physicians have a duty to promote public health and safety. The AMA principle does not specifically oblige physicians to whistle-blowing or impose a “duty to warn” of the sort Lee and her colleagues take themselves to have, but it commits a physician with a concern about local environmental pollutants, safety in schools, infectious disease transmission,or other public dangers to notifying others of the risk. Protecting public health and safety is part of the ethical commitments physicians make.

The problem is that psychiatric diagnostic terminology has been colloquialized, so the public and the press use it to describe Trump, but when a psychiatrist does so, use of the same words is considered to be a formal diagnosis, regardless of whether it is. As a result, psychiatrists are the only members of the citizenry who may not express concern about the mental health of the president using psychiatric diagnostic terminology.

Truly, however, a physician who hasn't formally evaluated a patient is not making a diagnosis in the medical sense, but rather positing informally, based on his/her education/experience, about what s/he sees. That characterization applies to the orthopedist or physical medicine specialist remarking on a knee injury of a football player limping off the field, or the dermatologist wincing at a stranger’s melanoma in the grocery line as well as to the psychiatrist interpreting Trump’s public statements. Physicians don’t leave their knowledge on a shelf in their clinics.

Clinical psychiatric terms have joined the vernacular; thus the question is whether psychiatrists are the ones we should hear it from. If one is to have any measure of reasonable understanding of the nature of risk we all face (or don't, depending on the nature of the remarks the psychiatrist(s) make), the answer must be "yes," for no one else (other than psychologists) is in a position to credibly sound the alarm.

I suppose for cursory conclusion formers, one's reminding them of the Goldwater Rule and simply stating it will do; however, more rigorous thinkers will find such a banal depiction and analysis insufficient because the Rule itself (1) pertains to something other than the potential accuracy of any remarks a psychiatrist might make but rather with the ethicality of making certain types of remarks -- ethicality/unethicality has no bearing on the factual or probabilistic accuracy of a claim about or description of an existential state of being, (2) is an annotation to a principle, not a proscription of the principle itself, (3) was modified on the Ides of March 2017, and (4) the document to which Haymarket refers and in which several psychiatrists' have offered their thoughts about the nature of Trump's personality, complies with the constraints of the 2017 revision. Thus nobody has from afar diagnosed anyone and the ethical mores of the APA have been complied with.

I really enjoy your thorough and well written posts on this subject. Your point about promoting public health and safety is an important one.
 
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