Brittany Spears, Conservatorship and the Abuse of Power

Britney Spears doesn’t make the news much anymore.  Her career is probably still going strong, but her wild ways and scrapes with the law are old news.  The media has latched on to new starlets and scandals, and they will never run out.

However, I noticed recently a story about conservatorship of this once-superstar (perhaps now only a mega-star?), and wanted to take the occasion to talk about this very serious legal step of conservatorship.

Miss Spears’ father is her conservator, and he wants her boyfriend appointed as a co-conservator over her well-being, and this might be a sign that he’s getting ready to marry her.  There is something very wrong with this picture.

People having conservatorship over other people should not be taken lightly.

In the Psychiatry an Industry of Death Museum in Los Angeles – funded by Scientologists, by the way — they claim that commitment and conservatorship powers are ways that psychiatrists dominate their patients and control their lives.

I had a major fight with an employer who thought I should have committed a patient who was “psychotic.”  She insisted she was walking around downtown Los Angeles with a German shepherd guard dog and some women friends, when she was effectively and visibly alone.  She said several times she would not cause any harm to either herself or to anyone else.  She said she could get good food and decent clothes from her mother.  She was dressed nicely and looked well fed.  As far as I could figure, there was no reason to take her freedom away.  It would have been wrongful commitment.

When I married my husband — whom I love as I love breathing — the Justice of the Peace said he knew he did not have to remove the word “obey” from the ceremony.  But he would and did.  My husband is wonderful, wise, and adorable.  But nobody is infallible.  Nobody in these United States should have enough dominion over another person to make that person do their will, just so, just like that.

If my husband would try to be my conservator, I would try to be divorced.  It is wrong for him to control me or want to control me.  Women have worked many generations to fight and escape this kind of dominion.

Despite what the Psychiatry an Industry of Death Museum in Los Angeles wants to claim, I have never had dominion over anyone else’s will. This includes that of my husband, and his over mine.

They say that the shared conservatorship is a sign that Britney Spears’ fiancé might be ready to marry her.  In my book, this does not particularly make things better.

In our society, it is bad enough that being able to act or sing – often questionably — or be attractive in a non-threatening way makes someone a celebrity.  It is what people do with that celebrity that interests me.

Even if I do not agree with a celebrity 100 percent, I like to see them at least try to do something good for what they believe in. Like Paul McCartney, who has been responsible for a lot of publications on vegetarianism.  I especially love what Dennis Quaid is trying to do, suing Baxter healthcare for poor labeling that may have caused an error that could have killed his kids.

Britney Spears needs both parent and boyfriend conservators!  If she is such a mess, she is probably not competent to be a wife and mother.  We know at least it does not seem to be congenital, and does not seem to have been amenable to treatment.  What part of her own life has she no dominion over?  Drugs, perhaps?  I know this is tough, but there is help available for this.

If she has navigated this part of life, then there is something worse going on. Sure, recidivism is part of the picture.  But is the danger of this so great she cannot be expected or permitted to try to navigate?  Is someone trying to put controls in place not because of what she has done, but because of what she might do?

The United States of America does not let people do this.  It is not right.

Moreover, it sounds as if someone may be more worried about the money she generates than about her.  If you know of no legal reason, try the Tom Cruise film The Minority Report.

I certainly do not admire celebrities who use their means to somehow get out of control.  Britney may have had a hard time, but believing she lacks the insight to control her own actions is truly a shame.

Psychiatry and conservatorship does not have – and should not have — this kind of power.