Life is political

Some people are reminding us that we don't yet know if the Arizona gunman's motives were political. We do know that he made political statements online and called his shooting an "assassination." At the same time, we know that his writings were incoherent and that he was mentally unstable.

That brings us to another way, however, that this whole thing is actually political: the way we care for the mentally ill. It's a complex problem that can't realistically be solved. At the same time, it could be so much better and the reason it isn't is completely political. We could have well-funded options for health-care for the mentally ill but we don't because funding for the weak and powerless is always the first to be cut--that's a political worldview that dominates in my state. I don't know who is more powerless than a person who is mentally ill unless maybe it's the loving family member of that person.