Those who blame the victims are wrong

But some of the blog comments posted to a recent Barrow Journal story about mentally ill patients being abused in unlicensed homes makes me wonder if people really are compassionate.

The negative comments contained one of two thoughts. First, some bloggers blasted the county and Winder for enforcing codes that don’t allow for unlicensed personal care homes in neighborhoods. Those blog comments seemed to think that the regulation of personal care homes was too much government intrusion; that people should be able to house whomever they wish without any kind of regulation. Along with that were comments from those who blasted “nosey” neighbors for reporting the illegal homes.

This kind of attitude often comes from those who dislike any kind of government regulation. They don’t like zoning; they don’t like building codes; they don’t like land use codes.

While there is no doubt government at all levels overregulates to a degree, to blame government for those illegal and unlicensed homes is wrongheaded. Personal care homes are supposed to be licensed by the state and they have to conform to zoning codes.

But it was the second group of comments that really left me dumbfounded. Several bloggers questioned — and even criticized — the families of those mentally ill people, saying that the families themselves should have been more responsible for their care.

What? None of us know the individual circumstances of those families or why those individuals found themselves in a bad situation. To blame the families for what happened is to blame the victims.

We don’t know the individual medical, psychological or financial needs of those families. We do know that they sought professional care for their family members and that a West Georgia hospital referred those mentally ill patients to a Gwinnett County facility and then to Barrow County. Why the hospital referred those people to an unlicensed facility is unclear, but it was not the fault of the patients or their families.

To suggest that somehow the families are to blame for this bad experience is pure arrogance coming from bloggers who know nothing of the details.

And anyway, all of that is a diversion to the real issue here, which is that a group of people got put into unlicensed care and were allegedly abused physically, mentally and financially by some people in Barrow County. If true, there is no defense for that.

Are bloggers in Barrow County so dense, so self-absorbed and so uninformed as to confuse the victims of a crime with those who caused the crime? Are they so politically inane that the have to find some large government conspiracy in every law enforcement action so that government is always the bad guy?

This is just another sign that our political discourse has become more coarse, vile and uninformed. The Internet has given a platform for the crazies to spout all kinds of ignorant ideas. And the uneducated in our society lack the ability to discern such nutty comments from those that are reasoned and factual.

So let’s set the record straight on the situation in Barrow County that involved several mentally ill people being dumped into unlicensed homes: The patients and their families were the victims. Those who ran those facilities caused the problems. The neighbors who reported the activity were right to alert authorities. Law enforcement officials were right in their response.

To suggest anything else is just wrong.

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Once again, Barrow’s EMS and fire services are in the headlines because of problems. Those emergency services are controversial in just about every community, either for their cost or response time issues.

And there’s no shortage of opinions. Some believe Barrow’s blended EMS and fire services were a mistake. Others think doing away with the old volunteer system was a mistake.

Now there’s talk of putting an ambulance in Winder where there is more population density and that is also controversial.

For as much money that is spent together on these services in the county and in Winder, the area should have a first-class fire and EMS system. And yet, the turmoil never seems to end.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.