A little bit of everything
Richard E. Vatz https://wp.towson.edu/vatz/ is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of political rhetoric at Towson University and author of The Only Authentic of Persuasion: the Agenda-Spin Model (Bookwrights House, 2024) and over 200 other works, essays, lectures, and op-eds. He is the benefactor of the Richard E. Vatz Best Debater Award at Towson. The Van Bokkelen Auditorium at Towson University has been named after him.
Throughout my young adulthood, the news and journalistic analysis show Meet the Press was the model of its kind. The closing self-tribute, “If it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press” was iterated without embarrassment.
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But this piece is not about a particular event; it is about the ubiquity in public discourse of mental illness being the cause of every violent, unusual and/or simply off-putting-to-the-observer action of those who are the subject of official or unofficial actions or thoughts.
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President Trump was frustrated by the military actions of Iran and Israel following his announcement of a ceasefire among Iran,
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Colleagues and I have written for decades on the widespread acceptance of the perspectives of psychiatry and psychology and how such starting points have provided the left in our country excuses for bad and illegal behavior.
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Meet the Press (MTP) has one of the most impressive histories of the Sunday news shows on the major networks. It has been around since 1947, initiated on radio in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press and, in those nearly 60 years since, it has brought to the fore major leaders for sometimes blistering but always informative question-and-answer sessions to promote public awareness of issues of the day – until a number of years ago.
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For over fifty years, I have taught persuasive writing and speaking under the title in my advanced course, Persuasion. I have won a host of teaching awards, lectured widely, and made innumerable media appearances. There is one irrefutable rule: do not let your anger interfere with your writing.
Today, there may be no topic on which this is more applicable than writing about our active president, Donald J. Trump.
He didn’t live to see it, but perhaps institutional psychiatry is on the verge of admitting that Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not biologically based.
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We need debates, substantive debates, not monologues including personal attacks, after principals ignore their opponents’ arguments.
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Jeff Bezos, owner of The Washinton Post, wrote recently and famously, “We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets…We’ll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.”
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If Elon Musk and President Donald Trump are serious and fearless – and one thinks that they manifestly are — about the dual goals of saving the American people money and increasing their independence and control of their lives, they should start by terminating the mandatory health insurance that Americans pay for mental health.
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