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a) off topic, and (b) representative of a global trend that was going on at the time, led by the psychiatric profession, rather than being any kind of personal whim of who your president happened to be at the time. We in Australia closed our mental asylums at the same time, with the same effect.

Blame Jack Nicholson if you want to blame someone; or rather the rash of 1970s “aren’t asylums terrible?” asylum fiction.

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Asylums were terrible. It's a dynamic that's extremely prone to abuse. I do think some people should probably be institutionalized involuntarily, but I can see the argument where, even as a mentally ill homeless person, you at least still have the freedom to physically escape someone who is abusing you. That's not something to be deprived lightly.

And yes, it was very much a global phenomenon, largely predating the 1980s.

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