(NH) GOP House member resigns after mental illness remarks

[Ian David]

Source: The Union Leader

By TOM FAHEY
State House Bureau Chief
34 minutes ago

CONCORD – Rep. Martin Harty, a Barrington Republican, has resigned after he drew fire for remarks on mental illness and population control.

Harty, who turns 92 this month, came into spotlight after telling a constituent during a phone call that he thought the best treatment for mental illness would be a one-way trip to Siberia.

He also said population control and mental illness could be controlled with eugenics, a form of genetic engineering commonly associated with Hitler's Germany.

Harty apologized in his letter to Speaker of the House William O'Brien, , citing "slightly unfavorable publicity" over his remarks. "Sorry my big mouth caused this furor," he said.O'Brien said in a brief announcement that Harty's seat will become vacant Tuesday after his letter of resignation is read to the House of Representatives. He said he will ask for a special election to fill the vacancy.



Read more: http://unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=GOP+House+member+resigns+after+mental+illness+remarks&articleId=e1ed223a-8999-44e6-999c-c2437a48a3a1

---

Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/singlepayer/status/47404720083578880


See prior threads:

New Hampshire Republican: Defective People Should Die In Siberia
Topic started by RandySF on Mar-11-11 01:28 PM (14 replies)
Last modified by anarch on Mar-11-11 02:59 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=615202



NH lawmaker suggests sending disabled 'to Siberia'
Topic started by Seedersandleechers on Mar-10-11 06:58 PM (41 replies)
Last modified by PBS Poll-435 on Mar-10-11 09:12 PM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=609141

[JuniperLea]

1. It wasn't your big mouth, Dumbass...

It was your puny brain.

[peacetalksforall]

4. puny, stuck brain - everyone is capable of more heart and reasoning.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. And just who is the mentally ill one?

:eyes:

[JuniperLea]

10. +1

[Posteritatis]

17. Because mental illness is just a convenient political slur.

:eyes:

[starzdust]

32. I've been diagnosed with a MI

I've had undiagnosed dysthymia for my entire life. Then in 2009 I tried to kill myself by overdosing on medications. It was a stupid act. I checked myself into the psych ward at my hospital. I finally got the correct diagnoses during my 2 week stay. I was also diagnosed with severe clinical depression, anxiety disorder, PTSD among others. I got into treatment and was making some progress until my hereditary small fiber poly-neuropathy pain got so bad I was forced to apply for disability retirement late last summer. Now, I've lost all the progress I've made in the preceding 16 months.

Talk about stress, I'm still waiting for my application for immediate disability retirement to be approved. It's been over 6 months now. My MI has gotten worse so has my neuropathy, they feed off of each other. My pain is 24/7 and requires a load of medications just to dull the pain in both feet. I can't walk or sit upright for more than 5 minutes at a time as the pain in my feet gets real bad. I spend a lot of time now with lying flat with my feet elevated using pillows and covered with a heated blanket. Some times I get so tired of dealing with the pain that I too wish I would die, maybe suicide is still an option. But I'm not there because I still have hope that things will improve.

There isn't any treatment on the near horizon that can ameliorate the neuropathy other than pain medications, which do little except for dulling the pain until I can take my prescription sleep aid "trazodone" which forces me to sleep. However I get an average of 4-5 hours before waking up due to the pain. I take some additional pain medications, hydrocodone and morphine and can go back to a semi-sleep. This is no way to live.

By the way, I do have health insurance and a prescription drug benefit. However I can't even cover the co-pays for my medicines and my therapist being a social worker has access to charity funding at the hospital to cover my MI medications. I haven't seen my primary doctor in over 6 months because I don't have any money for gas. I am still living on the Navajo Reservation where I was working because my federal employee immediate disability retirement still has not been approved (SIX MONTHS AND STILL NO WORD). I guess the federal governments Office of Personnel Management has a different definition for "immediate" than the rest of us have. I requested my Senators office staff to inquire as to the delay and he hasn't heard back from OPM either. It's over a month now.

I am financially devastated and I have zero money. I still have hope because my Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits began last month with my first benefit check due in 9 days (unless there is a government shut down).

BTW, my neighbor has graciously offered to share his WiFi network connection and that is the only way I can communicate with the outside world. My internet connection (DSL) was cut when Frontier disconnected my land line phone service.

I tell you my story so that those of you who don't know about mental illness can be educated on how devastating a mental illness can be. Mental illness is a brain disease (mine was inherited from my mother who had a a severe MI disorder) just like any other disease you can name (cancer for instance) and should be treated as such.

[tpsbmam]

33. Welcome to DU, starzdust.

(I hope that's not inappropriate -- I don't remember names well so if you've been around for a while, forgive me. There actually are people around who've joined a long time ago and post little.)

Anyway, after all of that blah, blah intro, I just wanted to say that you're not alone here. There are people here who are coping with all kinds of problems, including mental illnesses, neuropathy and other illnesses. I've known quite a few people who have neuropathy and I know it's hell. And you're right, mental illness and chronic pain feed each other. When you add in the kind of extra stress you've been going through, they definitely can all entwine to make everything worse and you feel like your coping ability is seriously tested.

Despite all of it, it sounds like you've been resourceful and have successfully met some of the challenges that are nightmares with disability, including getting SSDI. It so helps having people in your corner to help you fight all of that crap -- it sounds like maybe your therapist is one of those people? I hope there are others like your neighbor who lend a hand. One of my great weaknesses is refusing to ask for help -- I've had to learn to do that, as much as I hate it. And I find lots of people are not only happy to help, it makes them feel good -- it's always done that for me.

Our whole medical system is shameful -- you should be able to see a doc as needed and should not have to fight tooth and nail to get the help you need. It's really obscene. I've said many times recently "I wish I'd been born in Canada!" (I have MS and other problems and have to deal with lots of the same crap.)

So, again, welcome to DU and thank you for sharing so openly as a way of educating others.

:hi: :hug:

[Drale]

3. One down two-hundred and forty to go

They all have literal and figurative skeletons in their closets.

[Dawson Leery]

5. At least Marty Harty decided to not hide his true intentions

In the end, the tea party types want to remove all services for anyone except themselves. Narcissism at it's worst.

[tanyev]

6. What are you going to do next, Rep. Harty?

"I'm going to Siberia!"

[CLANG]

31. ROFL! I wonder how many people get the reference.

[glinda]

7. Time to elect a Dem.

[KamaAina]

8. Martin, with no votes, you ARE the Weakest Link.

Goodbye!

[NICO9000]

9. Who in the hell votes for a 92-year-old?

:wtf:

[provis99]

12. the same people that kept voting for octegenarian Strom Thurmond.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. They were taking him on like a welfare case in the end.

I'm not kidding.

[No Elephants]

21. Nonagenarian. Last elected at 96 and died at 100 or 101,IIRC.

When Dole was challenged on {racist} Strom's running for another six year term at such an advanced age, Dole replied, barely suppressing laughter, "Well, if he runs again, I might just have to say something."

[shanti]

35. other old people.

n/t

[JanDutchy]

11. Off course He thought it and speaks on it:. Philll: "It's good to talk about your own problems."

In the mirror:

"You ever meet a normal person? ou!"

I love to meet you!

[calimary]

14. I think he oughta get a one-way trip to Siberia.

He'll be just fine. Same temperature there as in his cold, cold heart. Assuming he even HAS a heart.

[Snoutport]

15. Bravo

Yay! I posted this guys address and phone at his office so people would write him. I sure the heck hope that helped him make his decision.

Does New Hampshire have any idea how bad this made them look?

[bluestateguy]

16. This non-apology apology is duly received and rejected

I view it as one less Republican vote in the legislature. Nothing more.

[Fritz67]

18. I'm shocked

Normally when a Republican gets caught saying something outrageously stupid, they circled the wagons, double down, and smear anyone who criticizes him as a socialist/Nazi/communist/Muslin/terrorist.

Especially as, let's face it, what this guy said is just about what the rest of the whole rotten Teabagger bunch seem to think.

[CTyankee]

20. Well, it IS New England! That counts for something! nt

[No Elephants]

24. Amen and hallelujah!

[fascisthunter]

19. good riddance

[freshwest]

27. To bad rubbish.

Okay, I couldn't resist.

I hope the internet outrage had something to do with it.

They need to disinfect this clown's office, too.

[crim son]

22. It's not so much his big mouth as his teeny, tiny brain that

caused the unfavorable publicity. Glad he's gone because he doesn't represent what America stands for, rather, he represents what we flush down the toilet.

[No Elephants]

23. I know someone who believed people who had mental problems should die somewhere, but,

apparently, mentioning Hitler in a perfectly accurate statement has become politically incorrect for some reason, especially if something one or more Republicans did is similar to something Hitler did.

So, I'll just zip it.

[Moonwalk]

26. Hitler just carried the idea a little farther than others did. Eugenics in the U.S.--

Formally originated in 1870 when it was suggested that the deaf be sterilized. By the turn of the century, there were sterilization laws in most states for the mentally ill and these lasted till the mid-20th century (which is why our 92 year old probably thought the idea perfectly fine. Such laws were probably still on the books and upheld when he was a young man!). Something like 60,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized here in America for being classified as mentally ill.

My point being that no one has to look to Germany to find inspiration for this kind of thinking. The U.S. supported and made legal a form of eugenics and genocide for that matter (leave us not forget the Native Americans) for something like fifty years before Hitler did it.

[Capt13]

28. Figures...

...He'd apologize. for the Furer

[No Elephants]

29. Sorry, no.

"which is why our 92 year old probably thought the idea perfectly fine."

Really? Where has he been for the last 50 years?

Also, your phrasing is potentially confusing, so allow me to clarify. Eugenics did not orignate in the U.S. (Not that eugenics began horrors against the mentally ill, anyway.)

And I'm pretty sure we weren't gassing anyone en masse, or sending anyone to Siberia to die--although our treatment of the mentally ill was often shameful.

http://www.museumofdisability.org/society_timeline.asp


http://www.museumofdisability.org/society_eugenics.asp


"My point being that no one has to look to Germany to find inspiration for this kind of thinking."

Good thing I never said one HAD to look to Germany to find (inspiration for) this kind of thinking.

[Moonwalk]

36. I didn't say the idea of eugenics originated in the U.S. I said that no one--

--inclined to go for the idea of eugenics has to look outside the U.S. to find support for it.

The comparison to Hitler may be apt, but it tends to make the senator look like a crazed, out-of-date, foreign thinking madman. But the truth is that such ideas and the appeal of them are frighteningly common, and not at all unusual to American and Americans.

I'm pointing this out because I want us to remember that one doesn't have to be a Hitler or Stalin to come up with such thoughts or put them into practice. I want us to remember and understand that eugenics was a popular idea in America (and elsewhere, duh!) even if it never got to the gas-chamber stage. We committed genocide against Native Americans, we experimented on the mentally ill and blacks. In the history of this country--and this goes up through till the 50's, we've had no compunction against the idea that certain groups are unworthy and can be wiped out or serialized and that this will better the human race. And people at our highest levels of government have, historically, supported it. The courts have even allowed it to happen.

As for where this guy has been in the last 50 years....Hmmm. Do we forget how the government just let gays die of AIDs in the 80's because they "deserved" it? Looked like eugenics to me.

I'm not trying to stop you from comparing this guy to Hitler. You're quite right that HItler put into practice the eugenics that most only suggested. But I want to make sure that we don't imply that this senator is a "rogue" American thinking like some crazy, mad German. I want to make sure that we understand that Americans think this way and have thought this way and are no less guilty of supporting such ideas as anyone else. It's very easy to single someone out as being a "Hitler" and not like the rest of us Americans. It's more important, I think, that we recognize what his way of thinking is common, and all too American.

[Moonwalk]

25. Are we surprised? And oh, the irony!

I mean, really, when he made that statement I could pretty much see him aiming a gun at his political career. He shot it dead with one stupid sentence. And isn't it ironic that his mental illness killed him (sic). :eyes:

[Downwinder]

30. Did he qualify for his state pension?

[tpsbmam]

34. Good. I'd say I hope he has nightmares and endless discomfort over being

such an asshole but sadly, he clearly has no idea what an asshole he is and how horrific his statements were. It's tempting to send him a book about the Nazis and highlight passages that are identical to his approach to illness & disability.

:grr:

K&R