If I knew someone was coming to my door with my best interests at heart..

...I would run and run and run and never stop running.

This is paraphrased from what I can remember from a comment in a
newspaper I read when I was in a psychiatric ward ages ago.

Best interests is another way for people to take power over an
individual. Admittedly this can be necessary when society is ill and
disadvantages those who are different. But therein lies the problem, and
this idea of best interests is just another way to subjugate people as
though they were subhuman and have no free will.

For example, it is in the best interests of a black slave to continue
being a black slave because that's all they know how to be. A black
slave who makes a choice to be a slave has capacity to chose what's in
their best interests. A black slave who doesn't understand needs someone
to make their decision for them so it fits in with what's required of
black slaves. After all, what else can a black slave do apart from be a
slave. They are not free people. They are subhuman.

That's really the simplicity in my simple thinking. Take free will away
from an individual and implicitly label them as subhuman. Best interests
is just the latest trick of society to enable the subjugation of people
and types.

I'm sure many black slaves were comfortable with their subjugation and
enslavement, but a few wanted to be free. They were gien a mental health
diagnosis of drapteomania. After all, it was crazy to keep running away
and it was in their best interests to stay. Those slaves who kept on
running away clearly lacked capacity to understand what they were: subhuman.

Thank fuck for the psychiatrists who treated those with a diagnosis of
drapteomania. Without the professions kindness and compassion those
slaves would have been free.