People, especially liberals and psychiatrists, say that the two main causes of crime are mental illness and poverty. Insanity is therefore a defense … - Thomas Szasz

The concept of disease is fast replacing the concept of responsibility. With increasing zeal Americans use and interpret the assertion "I am sick" as equivalent to the assertion "I am not responsible": Smokers say they are not responsible for smoking, drinkers that they are not responsible for drinking, gamblers that they are not responsible for gambling, and mothers who murder their infants that they are not responsible for killing. To prove their point — and to capitalize on their self-destructive and destructive behavior — smokers, drinkers, gamblers, and insanity acquitees are suing tobacco companies, liquor companies, gambling casinos, and physicians. Can American society survive this legal-psychiatric assault on its moral and political foundations?

Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.

The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds.