In some cases mental illness may render people dangerous to themselves or to others. If such a person begins to commit invasive acts against others, including any possible threats of violence that may interfere with the actions of others, then those others have the right in a free society to protect themselves, and hospitalization of the dangerous person is clearly an appropriate means toward that end. The issue of involuntary mental hospitalization is more controversial, however, in instances where mentally ill or senile persons begins to behave in a manner that is not aggressive toward others but presents a danger to themselves.
On the one hand, if the government is granted the arbitrary power to declare previously competent adults incompetent and to hospitalize them against their will, then that power can be too easily exploited for tyrannical purposes, such as the suppression of dissent or the imposition of certain value systems on the population. Such abuses of power were common in the late Soviet Union, but even in the United States involuntary commitment is frequently substituted for the constitutionally guaranteed right to a fair trial, as has been documented by Thomas Szasz in Psychiatric Justice
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