Earlier this month I posted CDC maps and data showing that South Dakota has twice the suicide rate of New York. Republican gubernatorial candidate Kristi Noem shares my concern over the alarming prevalence of suicide in our supposedly livable state:
Noem points to this Washington Post article on CDC research showing the same thing I highlighted, that suicide is higher and rising faster in rural counties:
The latest study bolsters those findings with a much more granular look at suicide rates in every county in the United States from 2005 through 2015. “The highest [suicide] rates across the time period were seen in parts of Alaska, Arizona, northern California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, North and South Dakota, Oregon, and Wyoming,” the study found. By contrast, urban cores in the Northeast had some of the country’s lowest suicide rates.
The study also confirmed previous research showing that suicide rates are not only higher in rural counties but also are rising faster in those areas. From 2005 through 2015, for instance, nearly half of rural counties saw their suicide rates increase by 30 percent or more. By contrast, 10 percent of the largest urban counties experienced a similar rate of increase [Christopher Ingraham, “Mapping the Rising Tide of Suicide Deaths Across the United States,” Washington Post, 2018.05.24].
Noem’s proposals for expanding mental health services statewide as governor seem like sure-fire ways to break her slogan-promise not to expand government:
Get proactive on mental health. The criminal justice system is the state’s largest provider for the mentally ill, a costly responsibility it’s not fully equipped to handle. As governor, I would:
- Work to ensure there are an array of mental-health options throughout the state by leveraging tele-psychiatry, expanding resources in schools, and supporting a mental health facility West River;
- Promote crisis intervention training and help assemble local crisis response teams to support law enforcement;
- Partner with Employee Assistance Programs to expand options for South Dakotans, helping individuals with mental health needs before they commit offenses; and
- Support ongoing pilot programs that divert non-violent offenders with mental illness through treatment programs, rather than the criminal justice system, expanding those programs which produce positive outcomes.
Support local control of school safety. I believe local communities must have the ability to decide how to best protect their students. In the U.S. House, I helped pass legislation that gives schools more financial flexibility and resources to make those important decisions, while also creating more options for schools to engage mental health professionals. As governor, I will take the same approach, ensuring schools and communities have the flexibilities needed to assert local control and protect our kids [Noem for Governor, Policies: “Safer Communities, Stronger Families,” retrieved 2018.05.30].
This happens a lot with Noem: her campaign team hears some issue, they figure talking about how Kristi can fix it will swing some voters, and she proposes all sorts of government actions, forgetting that she’s against government action (as epitomized by her eight years in Congress).
I appreciate that Noem takes occasional talking points from this blog. But if she wants to tackle suicide, mental health, or any other pressing social problem, she’ll need to adopt to stop squawking her Grover Norquist slogans and adopt this blog’s overarching theme of government as an effective tool of citizens working together to solve problems that free-market luck cannot.
How can Kristi expand mental health services and still maintain her “four pillars” which basically traps South Dakota like an ant in amber and will bring the state to a screeching halt?
Exactly Cory, Noem says she’s concerned and has outlined a plan but vows no tax increases. Then WHERE WILL THE MONEY COME FROM? Pierre is not exactly generous when it comes to people lacking mental health resources.
Fake politicians trying to feel bad about the suicide problem. Same old song and dance.
Billie Sutton for Governor!
This Republican primary is bizarre. Nearly every statement the candidates issue about each other criticizes big government, and nearly every statement they issue about their own policies promotes big government.
If secular mental health care were worth what it costs, we wouldn’t need Kristi Noem to force us to pay for it.
What is your solution, Kurt? Prayer?
Asking Christ to help us is one aspect of my solution. Another is political activism in support of a state government that secures individual rights to life, liberty and property instead of violating them.
Christ’s return to the earth is the only ultimate solution for self-murder in general.
“ensuring schools and communities have the flexibilities needed to assert local control and protect our kids [Noem for Governor,”
That doesn’t mean a thing. Nothing. There’s nothing there that is going to protect anyone. It’s just talk, empty words.
Kurt, there’s nothing here to for better mental health either:
“political activism in support of a state government that secures individual rights to life, liberty and property instead of violating them.”
That’s not going to do anything for depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. It’s just more words.
Cory wrote:
and adopt this blog’s overarching theme of government as an effective tool of citizens working together to solve problems that free-market luck cannot.
Lol.
That has to be the funniest sentence I have ever seen in my life.
Free market luck?
I take it Cory believes a person cannot make themselves a better person without Government.
Unbelievable.
This is the reason the majority of SD is Republican.
Debbo wrote:
political activism in support of a state government that secures individual rights to life
Defending yourself with a gun and outlawing abortion would be answers to your statement.
My bad. Kurt wrote that not Debbo.
Debbo wrote:
That’s not going to do anything for depression, bipolar disorder, alcoholism, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc. It’s just more words.
What do you propose the “Government” do for mental diseases it already isn’t doing?
Unlike liberals/Democrats, the Republicans understand help starts with the family first.
Deb writes:
We disagree, Deb. A government that violates individual rights to life, liberty and property exacerbates all of the conditions you’ve listed.
Firearms and dementia “The estimated number of older persons in the United States with Alzheimer disease is projected to increase from 4.7 million in 2010 to 13.8 million by 2050. An estimated 33% of all adults aged 65 years or older own a gun; another 12% live in a household with someone who does (1). A 1999 study estimated that 60% of persons with dementia (PWDs) live in a household with a firearm (2). If approximately 40% to 60% of households with PWDs also have a firearm, 7.8 to 11.8 million PWDs may live in a home with a firearm by 2050.” http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2680727/firearms-dementia-clinical-considerations
The problem is as simple as mental health with gun control for those who should not be in possession of firearms. Whomever gets the nod as our next governor, should indeed go to great lengths to help solve our problem here in the state of suicide. Mental health issues and working with social workers and family members alike could remove guns from homes that have a loved one who is on the edge of killing themselves.
Jerry,
Can you link us to the last time a person with Alzheimer’s or Dementia went on a mass shooting?
You don’t need a gun to kill yourself Jerry.
I really do think you need some help Jerry.
Jason spews- Unlike liberals/Democrats, the Republicans understand help starts with the family first.
That why they lavish billions on the koch bros and take away food stamps and medical care from the less fortunate and make insurance premiums skyrocket for the rest. With friends like Jason and wingnuts, Americans don’t need outside agitators.
Of course we are speaking of suicide and not mass killings. There is a difference in the two as one has to do with one and the other has to do with many. Although, it could be argued that some, like in the case of the Las Vegas shooting, killed in mass to end up killing themselves. So I guess that is a recent one. Try to keep up.
Kurt, even if I agree with your last contention, tell me how libertarianism will help people with mental illnesses. Or is “not making it worse” the best libertarianism has to offer?
Debbo rightly criticizes Noem’s language as empty. “Options” and “flexibilities” are more code for anarchic deregulation and hopes that someone figures out a solution or that the problem just disappears on its own.
I also agree with Debbo’s response to Kurt that “libertarianism” doesn’t help with mental illness… but check out Kurt’s opening critique. He rightly notes that Republicans throughout this primary have a weird tendency to complain that their opponents support bigger government while promising policies and solutions that require bigger government… almost as if they had split personalities, or at least an antisocial willingness to say things they don’t mean for personal gain. Kurt’s libertarianism, while maybe not the best model for solving broader social problems, might at least help the candidates’ personal mental health, as it would drive them to speak more consistently.
Meanwhile, Jason tries to twist the argument by ascribing to me straw-man arguments that he knows I did not make and will not make. “A person cannot make themselves a better person without government”? (a) terrible number agreement, (b) not said or suggested in anything I’ve said, (c) false, and (d) if it weren’t false, a critique still better directed at Noem than at me. She’s the one proposing new government action to solve suicide. That’s the point of this post: with her campaign rhetoric, Kristi Noem is affirming not Kurt’s libertarianism or Jason’s mean anti-socialism but my reporting on suicide and my position the government has a proper role in helping solve social problems.
I’d written to Deb:
Deb writes:
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking, Deb. If you agree with my contention that violating individual rights exacerbates mental illnesses, it directly follows that securing those rights will help people with mental illnesses.