Topic: Politics
Must the government protect us from mentally ill persons?
This question makes some assumptions that are unwarranted to say the least.
First: The presumption that the govt. can significantly reduce or eliminate the negative externalities caused by mental illness.
Second: The presumption that the govt. definition and diagnostic procedure for mental illness is correct.
Third: That mental illness exists and causes problems as such.

As an example, the govt. a supposedly been trying to solve the problem of poverty for a long time now. England has had programs in place for at least 200 years. As is quite evident, there are still a lot of poor people and they still suffer the deleterious effects of being poor. Interestingly, there are more pore people where there is more welfare. This indicates that welfare only expands the problem of poverty rather than solve it. Having grown up in a slum/hood, I see that long term (as in multigenerational) poverty is a mental illness. that will not show up on any official list of disease, but it can be just as debilitating as other recognized conditions. They probably go hand in hand in many cases.
It would seem that the primary point of continuity between illnesses (mental and physical) is that they impair function in some way. Thus, something as common as having a short time horizon and favoring instant gratification is just as much a disease as some other problem like . I'm not saying that mental illnesses are not real, or that they are not complex and issues. The point is that the govt. has no consistent way to decide what needs to be treated and how.
Additionally, there is the problem of subsidizing illness. When there are significant benefits to being ill, like free rent, food, etc., there will be more people who are ill. If there are benefits for being psychotic, there will be more psychotic people. Benefits to poor people cause more poverty. If public mental health programs and poverty programs were aimed at reducing the , they would just go away and let people have a nice strong dose of reality.