How can a US court control every major decision Britney Spears makes out of concern for her mental health, but they can allow obviously mentally ill people to live in danger while destroying our city streets through their continued, criminal vagrant behavior?
The judge hearing Ms. Spears's case in California probably walked past dozens of mentally ill individuals living on the sidewalks of Los Angeles in their own filth on their way to court. This judge sees this criminal vagrancy and the destruction it wreaks on the individuals as well as the society and shrugs thinking to themselves, "Well, what can we do?" right before hearing Ms. Spears's case.
The #FreeBritney online movement reached a milestone yesterday with the multi-platinum, multi-millionaire singer/performer appearing in a Los Angeles courtroom and finally speaking for herself in the ongoing drama over her father's conservatorship over her finances, business decisions, and even, apparently, her ability to forego birth control.
The story is complicated and multi-layered, and I don't wish to delve into the legal minutiae at this time. If you're interested in getting up-to-speed on how the former MTV sensation got into this dilemma, I suggest you do a deep dive into this New York Times breakdown. It's actually quite thorough.
For the purposes of this commentary, let's just pull out one aspect of the story from the AP write-up that is really at the core of the current legal battle.
Recommended
The conservatorship was put in place as she underwent a mental health crisis in 2008. She has credited its initial establishment with saving her from financial ruin and keeping her a top-flight pop star.
Her father and his attorneys have emphasized that she and her fortune, which court records put at more than $50 million, remain vulnerable to fraud and manipulation. Under the law, the burden would be on Spears to prove she is competent before the case could end.
So, in 2008, Spears suffered a mental breakdown, and her father was put in the conservatorship of her finances and business/life decisions. Now, 13 years later, she must convince a court that she is competent to handle her $50 million bank accounts.
The court still has the final say in all of this, and Spears is beholden to a judge's decision as to whether she can write her own checks, spend her own money, and even get pregnant.
Now, juxtapose this current legal battle over this recording star/millionaire's mental health issues with what we see every day on the streets of our Democrat-controlled American cities.
Every day we see individuals who are clearly suffering from severe mental illness. They live in tents and cardboard boxes. They live in their own filth. They defecate and urinate on our city sidewalks and in our public parks. They are dangers to themselves and to our communities. Cities like Los Angeles have spent billions of tax-payer dollars to "solve the homeless problem" by developing housing worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and yet the problem continues to get exponentially worse.
Everyone knows that the foundation of this crisis in American streets is rooted in mental illness and addiction. Everyone knows that spending billions of dollars to move these suffering individuals into public housing will not help them; it will only transfer the problem indoors. Further, it will attract and encourage even more individuals to the streets as the problem gets worse and worse.
And yet, we are told that our courts are powerless and can't do what needs to be done to get the mental health and addiction assistance these criminal vagrants desperately need.
We have laws currently on the books against public camping and criminal vagrancy. It is against the law to live on the streets. It is against the law to defecate, urinate and fornicate on our streets. Yet, police have been ordered to ignore these laws and allow the destruction of our public spaces by the courts and progressive activists who claim we, as a society, have no right to demand basic standards for our streets, sidewalks, and parks.
We are told that we do not have the right to force these mentally ill and addicted individuals to get the help they need so that they don't harm themselves anymore and don't further destroy our public areas.
Can someone please explain this to the average American citizen watching the destruction of their country's once-great cities?
On the one hand, our government is powerless to intervene and must allow mentally ill and addicted individuals to live in dangerous and disgusting conditions destroying our public streets, making life virtually unlivable for law-abiding, peaceful taxpayers who just want to be able to walk their children to the local park without dodging human feces or used hypodermic needles along the way.
On the other hand, a multi-millionaire who has multiple homes and is competent enough to continue performing, recording, and earning her way is kept in conservatorship, and the government's courts have the power to keep her in a virtual prison of servitude to her father because she had a mental health crisis over a decade ago.
Does anyone else see a serious problem here?
Yes, #FreeBritney, you bet. But, while we are at it, let's also examine with a very real and compassionate lens the destruction of our cities and the legitimate mental health crisis that is not debilitating a Grammy-winner whose biggest challenge is whether she can go back to her multi-year Vegas engagement, but debilitating our fellow Americans in the virtual prison of addiction and schizophrenia.
