Great article, one of my favorite movies, although now I will view it in another light entirely...
I haven't thought about the movie in years. It was impactful to see when I was a teen, and then again as an adult, a couple of times.
Aside from the immense topic of how to handle the mentally unbalanced in our society, it was yet another film in the 1970s that makes a statutory rapist (or just rapist) the hero. SIGH. Hey at least he didn't murder someone! /s
So McMurphy is not seen as crazy... but just faking it. When, obviously, he's not just a rapist (probably sociopath or psychopath) but also a manipulator (of the men and the staff at the facility) so most likely a narcissist.
If you notice, these are the types of people who are at the top echelons of our government and corporate class - so there's that.
And then, the problem of the low-level "Billys" or the other guys like "Chezzarooo" who have obvious imbalance.
Now we also have need to contend with a couple of generations worth of folks with severe autism, because it's not addressed.
I'm a big believer in mental illness being caused in a lot of cases, not inborn. It's just getting worse. So the number of institutions may or may not help society - but if we can't address stuff like the internet's bonanza of available porn and other dark web stuff that drives the youth crazy and makes it impossible for them to have meaningful relationships, the massive waterfall of drugs pouring into our cities, the normalization (and adulation) of criminal behavior, which is underneath a lot of mental stress and breakdown, I am not sure we will ever have a solution to the issue.
I watch a lot of "True Crime" on the internet because it's a fascinating opportunity to see into the reasons people do insane stuff like so many teens stabbing their parents or shooting them, like the guy in the article. It's not an isolated thing, it seems to happen a lot. Teens also kill girl/boyfriends, they rape elderly women, they kill teachers. If you take time to look at the often overlooked background of the teen in question, here's what you always find:
1) addiction to internet porn/games/horror films/snuff films
2) drug use
3) trauma
These are the common denominators but we're not allowed to talk about it because the makers of all that stuff on TikTok etc. won't have it. Because OnlyFans is a billion-dollar industry, so is the drug culture/industry.
Drugs cause insanity. So does alcohol. Easy enough to conclude if you have a loved one who has succumbed.
What is being done about that? Bupkiss. Alcohol displays are the first thing you see when you walk into an Albertson's. Drug use is still celebrated in movies and popular culture - now more than ever. My friend who's been a HS teacher for 30 years says the kids are way worse than we ever were (we tended to drink a lot of beer, smoke cigarettes, and pot). She said they drink hard liquor, take fentanyl etc. And she is in Washington state.
Sorry this is so long but I thought I'd share my observations over the years and the lack of ANYTHING being done to address the underlying issues for mental issues. We just ignore or celebrate them (e.g., a bumpersticker that says "Proud Parent of An Autistic Child").
Thank you. A great example of the alcohol-caused dementia is Wendy Williams, the talk show host. They tried to hide her alcoholism for years but at some point, she just acted too nuts and started falling apart physically. Then someone did a documentary, and it looked obvious to me. Just from the few scenes I saw. My friend can't remember something she said 20 minutes prior. Just like someone with Alzheimer's but she doesn't have Alzheimer's.
Interesting stuff, yeah a lot of points here. You have a much stronger opinion on alcohol than most folks it seems. However I would say that more people these days have a critical view of alcohol. I’ve heard that Huberman has created quite a sober sect within tech and young people.
I do criticize alcohol even though I drink occasionally. Whether one personally likes it or not, to not be able to see the unbelievable level of damage it does to individuals and society at large would be strange to me... the damage drunk drivers alone do is massive. We're all at their mercy. They usually don't die but the people they hit do. 12 years ago, my cousin was killed by a drunk driver as he traveled in a bike lane on a sunny afternoon.
In any case, I hope more sober "sects" crop up because sober living is actually the best way to live. Dependence on alcohol is awful. How many happy and productive alcoholics do you know? I have one friend with alcoholic dementia. It's pretty sad.
While HB 2467 never made it to a vote on the House, a small portion of it was shoved into a much larger bill -- HB 2005. There were trade-offs. It may be easier to get someone committed for treatment — however other patients may receive earlier releases. It will also be easier for mentally ill offenders to avoid a criminal record.
HB 2005 passed the House 38-13 and the Senate 20-9, largely along party lines with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. Gov. Kotek is expected to sign it.
Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell was particularly disappointed that HB 2467 was scrapped. Almost two months ago a man with a decades-long history of mental illness, multiple documented interactions with police and previous commitment at the state hospital for attempted murder went on a rampage at the Union Gospel Mission in Salem and stabbed 12 people, injuring some of them seriously.
Bethell said there still needs to be a way to legally intervene and stop someone who is dangerous.
Ultimately, Oregon needs more facilities to treat the mentally ill. Disability Rights Oregon has sued Oregon State Hospital for failing to quickly admit mentally ill defendants accused of crimes so they can be treated and assist in their own defense. In June, U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson sided with Disability Rights Oregon and found the state in contempt of court for failing to provide timely treatment.
This is such a fantastic article. And was a real treat to read. I even watched the video about how the film was made. Had NO idea that Kirk "the rapist" Douglass and his son were behind getting the film done. That is fascinating. I love those kind of backstories. This is such a fantastic article. So entertaining and insightful to read. Brava!!!
Our problem is that we don’t have nearly enough Nurse Ratcheds and far too many Randle P. McMurphys. The smart ones don’t end up in jail.
They become CEOs, litigators, startup founders, influencers—charismatic, badass men who bend rules, sow chaos, charm their way through confrontation, and land on their feet. McMurphy isn’t just a literary rebel; he’s an enduring cultural archetype: the swaggering, womanizing, authority-defying male whose recklessness is too often mistaken for leadership.
This pattern starts early. In fraternities, locker rooms, and classrooms, the McMurphy type becomes a social alpha while others are left to clean up the mess—or carry its consequences. Institutions reward the charm and overlook the harm. The merry prankster becomes the master of the universe.
Meanwhile, Nurse Ratched—however flawed—is reduced to a caricature of repression. But what she represents is precisely what our unraveling systems lack: order, limits, and the nerve to say no.
And Chief Bromden? He may have been written as a liberator. But seen from a different angle, he’s something else entirely: an avenger—quiet, observant, and finally decisive—on behalf of everyone who has ever been wrecked and discarded by a Randle P. McMurphy.
This is interesting especially how you break down the psychology of such a guy who superficially succeeds to fraternities, locker rooms etc. These places can be good for young men for a variety of reasons but if not bound by a guiding ethic of morality and some sort of spiritual reverence then they could create these “badass men” as you say. Interesting to use that term as well, reminds me of Glenn Loury and John McWhorter talking about “badass” black thugs in ghettos.
Thank you for an excellent and long overdue article. Portland has had a mental health crisis on its streets since the ACLU and other litigants successfully flung open the state hospital's doors in the 1970s and changed the laws to further their cause. I was a Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney at the time and remember the sudden influx of criminal cases committed by people who should not have been outside a hospital. Two examples are Ralph Jarvis and Roy Beard.
I prosecuted Jarvis for the 1979 murder of the dining hall manager at the Blanchet House of Hospitality. Jarvis was an Old Town denizen who seemed harmless, but the police and others knew he was mentally ill and did nothing about it. Today he would fit right in with similar street people. One day Jarvis walked into the kitchen, picked up a meat cleaver, and split open the manager's skull. Jarvis bragged that it was a "perfect split" and that it was necessary in his war against invaders from outer space. Respected psychiatrist Dr. Ed Colbach testified Jarvis was insane, the jury agreed, and the court committed him to the state hospital. The consensus was he should have been there to begin with.
Roy Beard set fire to the Pomona Hotel in Old Town (above Erickson's Bar) in 1975, killing 12 people. It was Portland's deadliest hotel fire and still is. Beard never went to trial because the court found him mentally incompetent and committed him to the state hospital. Beard, too, had been a regular fixture among the walking insane on the streets, but no one did anything about it until a dozen people died.
Over the past 50 years there have been countless individuals like Jarvis and Beard who should have been hospitalized but were allowed to wander around Portland terrorizing the public, committing every crime imaginable. All we have to do now is drive around town to see the same zombie-like people, usually worsened by drugs. "Cuckoo's Nest" is an excellent movie, but its obvious premise for normalizing the release of the dangerously ill has been disproved in Portland for five decades and counting.
Could it be that the express purpose of "Cuckoo's Nest" was to vilify our huge system of mental hospitals of the time, and thereby justify, in the weak minds of the public, the condition we're in today?
Progressives have made it possible for a 12-year-old to fall into the "wrong body" delusion (along with big money in hormones and roboritic vaginamakers)...so why would we expect them to get sane about insanity?
Yes Richard. I’m a recent psych grad from OSU and it’s mind bending to talk about these and other issues while completely ignoring the fact that gender insanity has been instituted at every level of the social services industry.
We have someone living on the streets near the Mt Tabor QFC who appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic. He has been there for several years and usually just shouts obscenities at no one in particular. Several days ago he followed me as I walked home and he was clearly shouting at me which made me concerned for my safety. He stopped following me after he walked into the street in front of a car, which stopped in enough time and distracted him enough to forget about me. He sleeps right on the sidewalk with little padding and no tent. At some point he is going to die on the streets or be arrested for hurting someone.
One of the reasons I left San Mateo (way too close to San Fran) was because a young schizophrenic man was allowed to roam around our neighborhood shouting at people and once on a walk I found myself vulnerable, because I discovered he was camping out on the other side of my block. No one would say anything for fear of being seen as "non-inclusive" etc. So I moved to a red state where at least you can say out loud when you've encountered a mentally unbalanced person and feel threatened.
Essentially closing the State Hospital system (ok it's open minimally) was a true tragedy for both acutely and chronically memtally ill, their families and the public at large. The "problem", pretty much ignored by our progressive legislatures and governors has snowballed with ongoing cost to Oregon and huge costs and determination ( sadly lacking from our rulers) going forward to fix. If only the mentally ill could form their own affiliate union and join then SEIU maybe then the Dems that claim to govern this dump might pay.attention
Thank you for this article! I am a clinical psychologist and have worked with families of mentally ill individuals who are at risk of suicide and/or violence towards others. The stress experienced by these families is so enormous they have to seek mental health care for themselves, because the family member who needs it the most is not getting enough care in the right setting and is instead running around on the street. This would not be happening if we still had a mental hospitalization system designed around the real needs of severely mentally ill patients. Instead, the family and healthcare professionals are forced to sit by helplessly while the patients go through crisis after crisis without adequate protection and care. One never knows if the mentally ill person will be admitted to a hospital, if they will stay there long enough to be adequately treated, or what will happen when he or she is moved on to another facility that gives the patient "more autonomy."
The dismantling of the mental hospital system was the result of the usual liberal do gooders motivated by their own projected antagonism towards authority, with obvious ignorance about the actual needs of group of people they claim to care about so much. Then when the mentally ill population is largely on our streets suffering and causing suffering to others, the leftists still refuse to respond appropriately, and instead prioritize their own resistance to structure, limits, and restrictions.
"Then when the mentally ill population is largely on our streets suffering and causing suffering to others, the leftists still refuse to respond appropriately, and instead prioritize their own resistance to structure, limits, and restrictions."
Your comment gets to the heart of the problem: when the mentally ill are visibly suffering—and causing suffering—on our streets, many on the left still refuse to acknowledge the role of structure, limits, or accountability in any humane solution. Instead, they double down on policies that prioritize ideological purity over results.
Part of this stems from a deep-seated anti-authoritarian reflex inherited from the 1960s. Authority, discipline, and even basic order are treated as inherently suspect—as if any form of constraint must be a tool of oppression rather than a precondition for stability, care, or recovery.
There’s also a cultural animus at work—a barely concealed contempt for the very people who once made up Nixon’s Silent Majority. The rule-following, tax-paying, socially conventional “normies” are seen as repressive, conformist, and morally compromised. If those on the left were candid, they'd come right out and accuse us of being uncool. So when those people raise concerns about safety, encampments, or public drug use, they’re not engaged with—they’re dismissed as reactionary.
That attitude allows some progressives to ignore the externalities of their policies entirely. It’s not about outcomes—it’s about maintaining a posture of moral superiority. And when reality intrudes—when a program fails, when public trust erodes, when someone gets stabbed by a loved one in psychosis—it’s either denied, blamed on systemic injustice, or waved off as anecdotal.
What’s missing is the courage to admit that compassion without limits isn’t care—it’s neglect. And a politics that punishes the functional while indulging the dysfunctional will not only fail the vulnerable, it will also destroy the public’s willingness to fund any of it. That time can't come soon enough in the Rose City.
The social justice fundamentalists are actually the ones who are "rule following...socially conventional (not normies, though)...repressive, conformist and morally compromised." So much of SJF thinking is a projection of their own obvious shortcomings.
Your point about "when reality intrudes--when a program fails, etc." made me think about the video we watched on the Stella O'Malley site featuring Dr. Paul Hughes. He repeatedly stated his opinion that the gender ideologues, when presented with biological facts that could discredit their ideas, choose to affirm the ideas instead, and that the entire trans movement is based on that choice.
Your point about "compassion without limits isn't care--it's neglect" is a piece of wisdom I acquired relatively recently in my life and have found to be profoundly true. Children who have too little supervision and guidance from their parents often like the freedom, but at the same time feel they are not cared about, and as young adults or older, may not take good care of themselves.
Ken Kesey has a lot to answer for - he was instrumental in helping to convince the public that institutionalizing severely mentally ill people was unacceptable.
Instead, the mentally ill should be "mainstreamed into the community" - i.e., dumped into Old Town.
Thomas Szasz was also a major influence in the 1960's-1980's movement to set psychotic patients free from psychiatric hospitals, and even free from diagnoses. Michel Foucault, one of the central developers of critical theory, was another contributor to the eventual dismantling of the mental hospital system. He focused his critical analysis to a large extent on efforts to expose and deconstruct the power strategies being enacted through professional language, such as diagnoses and prognoses that could be used to take power away from gay people, for example, who were being committed to mental hospitals for years at a time for no other reason than homosexuality.
There were many abuses in psych hospitals, without doubt. But during the time that I worked professionally in such places, mostly from the start of the Seventies, chronically mentally ill patients were often okay with being sent there from out patient clinics. Even if they were angry at the beginning about being in a psych unit on a hold, they later often looked at the hospitalization as being what they needed. Those of us who were trying to take care of the patients were also grateful for the presence of Dammasch State Hospital. The system wasn't perfect but it was so much better than it is now.
Yeah, I thought that Szasz was really kewl at one point.
Astonishing that a psychiatrist could seriously argue that schizophrenia was just a false diagnosis that an oppressive society awarded to dissenters, without being immediately being laughed out of the room.
Yeah, me too. I was even more hooked on Ronald Laing, whose views on schizophrenia were really interesting but not at all consistent with what is currently believed about that illness. Laing’s perspective was that the family dynamics were the cause of the patient’s symptoms and that the patient was basically a victim
So there was quite a lot of support among hip people and intellectual dissidents for the anti-mental hospital movement, which emerged and was sustained within the fields of psychology and psychiatry as well as elsewhere in the intellectual left.
Its sounds cruel and inhumane to commit a family member to a mental hospital but the practice kept a lot of people safe, not only from themselves but from society. This rule of allowing dangerous people to roam the streets because of what we are now calling humanity is not....it's only created a situation of someone getting hurt or dying, being themselves or someone else. 😫
Fitzsimmons has managed to speak what has been "unspeakable" by the MSM for years - the continuing and often fatal failure of the "mental health system to help several very different populations:
1) People who commit serious crimes but whose cognition may be significantly impaired by thought disorders (usually treatable mental illness NOT including anti-social personalities)
2) People who may or may not have committed a crime, but are at extreme risk of seriously hurting or killing themselves because of a mental disorder
3) The increasing number of serious criminals whose lawyers want them to be given a "pass" for being "unable to appreciate the criminality of their behavior" - essentially the scam McMurphy tried to pull to get out of the Oregon State Prison.
These three groups do not mix well and there are huge differences between someone who genuinely thinks their parents are hostile octopus-based lifeforms from a nearby star and another who thinks their neighbor's life is a worthless impediment to their own imminent fame and success.
Law and medicine rarely mix well, but when the "new" State Hospital was built and radically down-sized, problems were predicted long before ground was even broken.
During the 20 years I helped courts decide whether to commit people who were a danger to self or others (second category), it was heartbreaking to have to tell parents that their adult child who broke into their room waving a butcher's knife at 3 am, and claiming his parents were alien invaders, that Oregon law could do little to help them - until they got stabbed..
The great savant, Anatole France, once said "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."
Oregon is free to ignore them equally, unless it helps get rid of a criminal charge!
Kesey may be the person most responsible for destroying Oregon’s mental health system. People now on the streets should be institutionalized. I was told that the day the Pendleton hospital closed down, the inmates/patients were given $50 and a bus ticket to Portland. That’s probably a myth, but there’s no state hospital in Pendleton anymore.
I’ve heard the same thing about homeless folks in Austin being sent up here. Personally I think such a thing - sending folks from across state lines - should be illegal.
This is such a huge and difficult issue. I don't understand why our legislators aren't rushing to address it. I contacted one on a related committee, asking for funding of increased capacity at the state mental hospital, and willingness to place patients. I cited some suffering individuals I had witnessed on Portland streets. He sent me a report he had on the scope of the problem. He hadn't read it, but had a briefing on it: it didn't support more capacity. So I read the report, and it did support it. Or course it was a lot more complex than that, emphasizing the variety of needs in different parts of the state. In addition, I didn't realize there was more capacity already available, limited by lack of staff--funding for more staff would bring more capacity. But I could politely cite back to him support for my request. He responded, that he had a lot of work to do. This was a few years ago.
Pamela, one of my fav writers
Great article, one of my favorite movies, although now I will view it in another light entirely...
I haven't thought about the movie in years. It was impactful to see when I was a teen, and then again as an adult, a couple of times.
Aside from the immense topic of how to handle the mentally unbalanced in our society, it was yet another film in the 1970s that makes a statutory rapist (or just rapist) the hero. SIGH. Hey at least he didn't murder someone! /s
So McMurphy is not seen as crazy... but just faking it. When, obviously, he's not just a rapist (probably sociopath or psychopath) but also a manipulator (of the men and the staff at the facility) so most likely a narcissist.
If you notice, these are the types of people who are at the top echelons of our government and corporate class - so there's that.
And then, the problem of the low-level "Billys" or the other guys like "Chezzarooo" who have obvious imbalance.
Now we also have need to contend with a couple of generations worth of folks with severe autism, because it's not addressed.
I'm a big believer in mental illness being caused in a lot of cases, not inborn. It's just getting worse. So the number of institutions may or may not help society - but if we can't address stuff like the internet's bonanza of available porn and other dark web stuff that drives the youth crazy and makes it impossible for them to have meaningful relationships, the massive waterfall of drugs pouring into our cities, the normalization (and adulation) of criminal behavior, which is underneath a lot of mental stress and breakdown, I am not sure we will ever have a solution to the issue.
I watch a lot of "True Crime" on the internet because it's a fascinating opportunity to see into the reasons people do insane stuff like so many teens stabbing their parents or shooting them, like the guy in the article. It's not an isolated thing, it seems to happen a lot. Teens also kill girl/boyfriends, they rape elderly women, they kill teachers. If you take time to look at the often overlooked background of the teen in question, here's what you always find:
1) addiction to internet porn/games/horror films/snuff films
2) drug use
3) trauma
These are the common denominators but we're not allowed to talk about it because the makers of all that stuff on TikTok etc. won't have it. Because OnlyFans is a billion-dollar industry, so is the drug culture/industry.
Drugs cause insanity. So does alcohol. Easy enough to conclude if you have a loved one who has succumbed.
What is being done about that? Bupkiss. Alcohol displays are the first thing you see when you walk into an Albertson's. Drug use is still celebrated in movies and popular culture - now more than ever. My friend who's been a HS teacher for 30 years says the kids are way worse than we ever were (we tended to drink a lot of beer, smoke cigarettes, and pot). She said they drink hard liquor, take fentanyl etc. And she is in Washington state.
Sorry this is so long but I thought I'd share my observations over the years and the lack of ANYTHING being done to address the underlying issues for mental issues. We just ignore or celebrate them (e.g., a bumpersticker that says "Proud Parent of An Autistic Child").
That’s really sketchy, I didn’t know that about her. Another reason to stay sober!
That’s terrible I’m sorry about your cousin. I didn’t know it could give you dementia.
Thank you. A great example of the alcohol-caused dementia is Wendy Williams, the talk show host. They tried to hide her alcoholism for years but at some point, she just acted too nuts and started falling apart physically. Then someone did a documentary, and it looked obvious to me. Just from the few scenes I saw. My friend can't remember something she said 20 minutes prior. Just like someone with Alzheimer's but she doesn't have Alzheimer's.
Interesting stuff, yeah a lot of points here. You have a much stronger opinion on alcohol than most folks it seems. However I would say that more people these days have a critical view of alcohol. I’ve heard that Huberman has created quite a sober sect within tech and young people.
I do criticize alcohol even though I drink occasionally. Whether one personally likes it or not, to not be able to see the unbelievable level of damage it does to individuals and society at large would be strange to me... the damage drunk drivers alone do is massive. We're all at their mercy. They usually don't die but the people they hit do. 12 years ago, my cousin was killed by a drunk driver as he traveled in a bike lane on a sunny afternoon.
In any case, I hope more sober "sects" crop up because sober living is actually the best way to live. Dependence on alcohol is awful. How many happy and productive alcoholics do you know? I have one friend with alcoholic dementia. It's pretty sad.
I hope 2467 is brought back to life in the next session- way too far away.
While HB 2467 never made it to a vote on the House, a small portion of it was shoved into a much larger bill -- HB 2005. There were trade-offs. It may be easier to get someone committed for treatment — however other patients may receive earlier releases. It will also be easier for mentally ill offenders to avoid a criminal record.
HB 2005 passed the House 38-13 and the Senate 20-9, largely along party lines with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. Gov. Kotek is expected to sign it.
Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell was particularly disappointed that HB 2467 was scrapped. Almost two months ago a man with a decades-long history of mental illness, multiple documented interactions with police and previous commitment at the state hospital for attempted murder went on a rampage at the Union Gospel Mission in Salem and stabbed 12 people, injuring some of them seriously.
Bethell said there still needs to be a way to legally intervene and stop someone who is dangerous.
Ultimately, Oregon needs more facilities to treat the mentally ill. Disability Rights Oregon has sued Oregon State Hospital for failing to quickly admit mentally ill defendants accused of crimes so they can be treated and assist in their own defense. In June, U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson sided with Disability Rights Oregon and found the state in contempt of court for failing to provide timely treatment.
Thank You for your terrific research & journalism Pamela!
This is such a fantastic article. And was a real treat to read. I even watched the video about how the film was made. Had NO idea that Kirk "the rapist" Douglass and his son were behind getting the film done. That is fascinating. I love those kind of backstories. This is such a fantastic article. So entertaining and insightful to read. Brava!!!
Our problem is that we don’t have nearly enough Nurse Ratcheds and far too many Randle P. McMurphys. The smart ones don’t end up in jail.
They become CEOs, litigators, startup founders, influencers—charismatic, badass men who bend rules, sow chaos, charm their way through confrontation, and land on their feet. McMurphy isn’t just a literary rebel; he’s an enduring cultural archetype: the swaggering, womanizing, authority-defying male whose recklessness is too often mistaken for leadership.
This pattern starts early. In fraternities, locker rooms, and classrooms, the McMurphy type becomes a social alpha while others are left to clean up the mess—or carry its consequences. Institutions reward the charm and overlook the harm. The merry prankster becomes the master of the universe.
Meanwhile, Nurse Ratched—however flawed—is reduced to a caricature of repression. But what she represents is precisely what our unraveling systems lack: order, limits, and the nerve to say no.
And Chief Bromden? He may have been written as a liberator. But seen from a different angle, he’s something else entirely: an avenger—quiet, observant, and finally decisive—on behalf of everyone who has ever been wrecked and discarded by a Randle P. McMurphy.
This is interesting especially how you break down the psychology of such a guy who superficially succeeds to fraternities, locker rooms etc. These places can be good for young men for a variety of reasons but if not bound by a guiding ethic of morality and some sort of spiritual reverence then they could create these “badass men” as you say. Interesting to use that term as well, reminds me of Glenn Loury and John McWhorter talking about “badass” black thugs in ghettos.
Thank you for an excellent and long overdue article. Portland has had a mental health crisis on its streets since the ACLU and other litigants successfully flung open the state hospital's doors in the 1970s and changed the laws to further their cause. I was a Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney at the time and remember the sudden influx of criminal cases committed by people who should not have been outside a hospital. Two examples are Ralph Jarvis and Roy Beard.
I prosecuted Jarvis for the 1979 murder of the dining hall manager at the Blanchet House of Hospitality. Jarvis was an Old Town denizen who seemed harmless, but the police and others knew he was mentally ill and did nothing about it. Today he would fit right in with similar street people. One day Jarvis walked into the kitchen, picked up a meat cleaver, and split open the manager's skull. Jarvis bragged that it was a "perfect split" and that it was necessary in his war against invaders from outer space. Respected psychiatrist Dr. Ed Colbach testified Jarvis was insane, the jury agreed, and the court committed him to the state hospital. The consensus was he should have been there to begin with.
Roy Beard set fire to the Pomona Hotel in Old Town (above Erickson's Bar) in 1975, killing 12 people. It was Portland's deadliest hotel fire and still is. Beard never went to trial because the court found him mentally incompetent and committed him to the state hospital. Beard, too, had been a regular fixture among the walking insane on the streets, but no one did anything about it until a dozen people died.
Over the past 50 years there have been countless individuals like Jarvis and Beard who should have been hospitalized but were allowed to wander around Portland terrorizing the public, committing every crime imaginable. All we have to do now is drive around town to see the same zombie-like people, usually worsened by drugs. "Cuckoo's Nest" is an excellent movie, but its obvious premise for normalizing the release of the dangerously ill has been disproved in Portland for five decades and counting.
Could it be that the express purpose of "Cuckoo's Nest" was to vilify our huge system of mental hospitals of the time, and thereby justify, in the weak minds of the public, the condition we're in today?
Progressives have made it possible for a 12-year-old to fall into the "wrong body" delusion (along with big money in hormones and roboritic vaginamakers)...so why would we expect them to get sane about insanity?
Yes Richard. I’m a recent psych grad from OSU and it’s mind bending to talk about these and other issues while completely ignoring the fact that gender insanity has been instituted at every level of the social services industry.
We have someone living on the streets near the Mt Tabor QFC who appears to be a paranoid schizophrenic. He has been there for several years and usually just shouts obscenities at no one in particular. Several days ago he followed me as I walked home and he was clearly shouting at me which made me concerned for my safety. He stopped following me after he walked into the street in front of a car, which stopped in enough time and distracted him enough to forget about me. He sleeps right on the sidewalk with little padding and no tent. At some point he is going to die on the streets or be arrested for hurting someone.
One of the reasons I left San Mateo (way too close to San Fran) was because a young schizophrenic man was allowed to roam around our neighborhood shouting at people and once on a walk I found myself vulnerable, because I discovered he was camping out on the other side of my block. No one would say anything for fear of being seen as "non-inclusive" etc. So I moved to a red state where at least you can say out loud when you've encountered a mentally unbalanced person and feel threatened.
Essentially closing the State Hospital system (ok it's open minimally) was a true tragedy for both acutely and chronically memtally ill, their families and the public at large. The "problem", pretty much ignored by our progressive legislatures and governors has snowballed with ongoing cost to Oregon and huge costs and determination ( sadly lacking from our rulers) going forward to fix. If only the mentally ill could form their own affiliate union and join then SEIU maybe then the Dems that claim to govern this dump might pay.attention
Thank you for this article! I am a clinical psychologist and have worked with families of mentally ill individuals who are at risk of suicide and/or violence towards others. The stress experienced by these families is so enormous they have to seek mental health care for themselves, because the family member who needs it the most is not getting enough care in the right setting and is instead running around on the street. This would not be happening if we still had a mental hospitalization system designed around the real needs of severely mentally ill patients. Instead, the family and healthcare professionals are forced to sit by helplessly while the patients go through crisis after crisis without adequate protection and care. One never knows if the mentally ill person will be admitted to a hospital, if they will stay there long enough to be adequately treated, or what will happen when he or she is moved on to another facility that gives the patient "more autonomy."
The dismantling of the mental hospital system was the result of the usual liberal do gooders motivated by their own projected antagonism towards authority, with obvious ignorance about the actual needs of group of people they claim to care about so much. Then when the mentally ill population is largely on our streets suffering and causing suffering to others, the leftists still refuse to respond appropriately, and instead prioritize their own resistance to structure, limits, and restrictions.
"Then when the mentally ill population is largely on our streets suffering and causing suffering to others, the leftists still refuse to respond appropriately, and instead prioritize their own resistance to structure, limits, and restrictions."
Your comment gets to the heart of the problem: when the mentally ill are visibly suffering—and causing suffering—on our streets, many on the left still refuse to acknowledge the role of structure, limits, or accountability in any humane solution. Instead, they double down on policies that prioritize ideological purity over results.
Part of this stems from a deep-seated anti-authoritarian reflex inherited from the 1960s. Authority, discipline, and even basic order are treated as inherently suspect—as if any form of constraint must be a tool of oppression rather than a precondition for stability, care, or recovery.
There’s also a cultural animus at work—a barely concealed contempt for the very people who once made up Nixon’s Silent Majority. The rule-following, tax-paying, socially conventional “normies” are seen as repressive, conformist, and morally compromised. If those on the left were candid, they'd come right out and accuse us of being uncool. So when those people raise concerns about safety, encampments, or public drug use, they’re not engaged with—they’re dismissed as reactionary.
That attitude allows some progressives to ignore the externalities of their policies entirely. It’s not about outcomes—it’s about maintaining a posture of moral superiority. And when reality intrudes—when a program fails, when public trust erodes, when someone gets stabbed by a loved one in psychosis—it’s either denied, blamed on systemic injustice, or waved off as anecdotal.
What’s missing is the courage to admit that compassion without limits isn’t care—it’s neglect. And a politics that punishes the functional while indulging the dysfunctional will not only fail the vulnerable, it will also destroy the public’s willingness to fund any of it. That time can't come soon enough in the Rose City.
Wonderful post, Ollie!
The social justice fundamentalists are actually the ones who are "rule following...socially conventional (not normies, though)...repressive, conformist and morally compromised." So much of SJF thinking is a projection of their own obvious shortcomings.
Your point about "when reality intrudes--when a program fails, etc." made me think about the video we watched on the Stella O'Malley site featuring Dr. Paul Hughes. He repeatedly stated his opinion that the gender ideologues, when presented with biological facts that could discredit their ideas, choose to affirm the ideas instead, and that the entire trans movement is based on that choice.
Your point about "compassion without limits isn't care--it's neglect" is a piece of wisdom I acquired relatively recently in my life and have found to be profoundly true. Children who have too little supervision and guidance from their parents often like the freedom, but at the same time feel they are not cared about, and as young adults or older, may not take good care of themselves.
Ken Kesey has a lot to answer for - he was instrumental in helping to convince the public that institutionalizing severely mentally ill people was unacceptable.
Instead, the mentally ill should be "mainstreamed into the community" - i.e., dumped into Old Town.
Thomas Szasz was also a major influence in the 1960's-1980's movement to set psychotic patients free from psychiatric hospitals, and even free from diagnoses. Michel Foucault, one of the central developers of critical theory, was another contributor to the eventual dismantling of the mental hospital system. He focused his critical analysis to a large extent on efforts to expose and deconstruct the power strategies being enacted through professional language, such as diagnoses and prognoses that could be used to take power away from gay people, for example, who were being committed to mental hospitals for years at a time for no other reason than homosexuality.
There were many abuses in psych hospitals, without doubt. But during the time that I worked professionally in such places, mostly from the start of the Seventies, chronically mentally ill patients were often okay with being sent there from out patient clinics. Even if they were angry at the beginning about being in a psych unit on a hold, they later often looked at the hospitalization as being what they needed. Those of us who were trying to take care of the patients were also grateful for the presence of Dammasch State Hospital. The system wasn't perfect but it was so much better than it is now.
Yeah, I thought that Szasz was really kewl at one point.
Astonishing that a psychiatrist could seriously argue that schizophrenia was just a false diagnosis that an oppressive society awarded to dissenters, without being immediately being laughed out of the room.
Yeah, me too. I was even more hooked on Ronald Laing, whose views on schizophrenia were really interesting but not at all consistent with what is currently believed about that illness. Laing’s perspective was that the family dynamics were the cause of the patient’s symptoms and that the patient was basically a victim
So there was quite a lot of support among hip people and intellectual dissidents for the anti-mental hospital movement, which emerged and was sustained within the fields of psychology and psychiatry as well as elsewhere in the intellectual left.
Its sounds cruel and inhumane to commit a family member to a mental hospital but the practice kept a lot of people safe, not only from themselves but from society. This rule of allowing dangerous people to roam the streets because of what we are now calling humanity is not....it's only created a situation of someone getting hurt or dying, being themselves or someone else. 😫
Fitzsimmons has managed to speak what has been "unspeakable" by the MSM for years - the continuing and often fatal failure of the "mental health system to help several very different populations:
1) People who commit serious crimes but whose cognition may be significantly impaired by thought disorders (usually treatable mental illness NOT including anti-social personalities)
2) People who may or may not have committed a crime, but are at extreme risk of seriously hurting or killing themselves because of a mental disorder
3) The increasing number of serious criminals whose lawyers want them to be given a "pass" for being "unable to appreciate the criminality of their behavior" - essentially the scam McMurphy tried to pull to get out of the Oregon State Prison.
These three groups do not mix well and there are huge differences between someone who genuinely thinks their parents are hostile octopus-based lifeforms from a nearby star and another who thinks their neighbor's life is a worthless impediment to their own imminent fame and success.
Law and medicine rarely mix well, but when the "new" State Hospital was built and radically down-sized, problems were predicted long before ground was even broken.
During the 20 years I helped courts decide whether to commit people who were a danger to self or others (second category), it was heartbreaking to have to tell parents that their adult child who broke into their room waving a butcher's knife at 3 am, and claiming his parents were alien invaders, that Oregon law could do little to help them - until they got stabbed..
The great savant, Anatole France, once said "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."
Oregon is free to ignore them equally, unless it helps get rid of a criminal charge!
Kesey may be the person most responsible for destroying Oregon’s mental health system. People now on the streets should be institutionalized. I was told that the day the Pendleton hospital closed down, the inmates/patients were given $50 and a bus ticket to Portland. That’s probably a myth, but there’s no state hospital in Pendleton anymore.
I’ve heard the same thing about homeless folks in Austin being sent up here. Personally I think such a thing - sending folks from across state lines - should be illegal.
Portland is the country's asylum at this point so I bet there is more truth verses fiction to that story.
This is such a huge and difficult issue. I don't understand why our legislators aren't rushing to address it. I contacted one on a related committee, asking for funding of increased capacity at the state mental hospital, and willingness to place patients. I cited some suffering individuals I had witnessed on Portland streets. He sent me a report he had on the scope of the problem. He hadn't read it, but had a briefing on it: it didn't support more capacity. So I read the report, and it did support it. Or course it was a lot more complex than that, emphasizing the variety of needs in different parts of the state. In addition, I didn't realize there was more capacity already available, limited by lack of staff--funding for more staff would bring more capacity. But I could politely cite back to him support for my request. He responded, that he had a lot of work to do. This was a few years ago.
Thank you so much for including the link to the YouTube “behind the scenes” of making the movie. I just started watching it. It seems fascinating.