The history of our civilization is, in part, the struggle against paternalism and for self-determination. People in power are always saying that they know what is best for those they rule over, even if those poor unfortunate individuals think they know best what they want. The powerful seldom cast their own motives in anything but benevolent terms. The struggle for freedom has always been seen by the powerful as a denial of the obvious truth of the superiority of the rulers. If we are truly concerned with protecting people we may deem to be incompetent, surely we must zealously protect their right to pursue happiness as well as their right to be safe.
Reason is a more humble, more universal, more democratic gift.
The very language makes it sound as if the result desired by the intervener is based in a natural order, on natural law as compelling cause. Using the language of imperative distances the policy maker from involvement with particular people and specific situations. Using a word like need as a basis for justifying action hides that this is a personal judgment. Many of the people who are subjects of coercive psychiatry already have been subject to trauma. Involuntary psychiatry exacerbates their post-traumatic stress, and may in and of itself create that syndrome.