March 5, 2007

Locking-up Home Schoolers

By James Lewis
Locking up as mentally ill those who refuse to obey a tyrannical state was a favorite tactic of Stalin and his successors. The New Europe is learning to love this reinforcement of government power. According to Paul Belien, the editor of Brussels Journal, a sixteen-year old girl in Germany has been locked up in a psychiatric ward for "school phobia" --- resisting state schooling after years of being home schooled. Belien quotes the one-paragraph psychiatrist's report on Melissa Busekros. Judging by her photo, she seems about as healthy and normal as teenage girls get. One "Dr. Siegfried Schanda" --- I'm not kidding, this is not a Franz Kafka or Dickens story --- summarized her psychiatric "disorder" as follows: "Melissa Busekros was examined by us. She has a childhood emotional disorder, severe school phobia and an oppositional denial-syndrome. Melissa lacks insight into her illness and the need for treatment, and considers herself healthy...(Read Full Article)