Your assumption that programs "take a healthy human being, destroy his/her personality and rebuild him from the ground up" is one you seem particularly attached to, so I guess I won't waste the energy trying to convince you that it doesn't apply to many programs, with the possible exception of truly military style boot-camps--and most of those are licensed or run by the state. But you might consider looking more closely at the patterns and practices of private programs.
I don't know about the 'healthy human being' part, but it is not important really. The issue is that the behavior changes are forced onto an unwilling victim. That is the basic, and unethical, part of any of these programs that take kids against their will and hold them against their will.
The very basis of a free, democratic society, is the individual's right to choose. Giving people freedom of choice means taking the risk that some of them will choose to go against the rules. They may suffer the consequences of these decisions, but it is still their choice. If society chooses to intervene in the behavior, it does so as a democratic society.
The basic premise of these programs is that the parents have a right to take all choice away from their teenaged child and 'fix' them with forced psychological behavior modification whether or not the child agrees there is even a problem. The teens are denied their right to choose based solely upon their age, not their competency or level of development. Those who make this decision (the parents) are not required to have any expertise or qualifications for making this decision. There are no checks or balances protecting the teenagers' rights or best interests. The parents are not held accountable to any set of standards or rules regarding this decision.
Programs operate in the same way. There are no standards or rules to which they are held accountable. There are no checks or balances to ensure that their methods are safe or humane. There is no recourse for the imprisoned teenager who must endure the 'treatment' whether or not it is warranted or has any merit or whether or not the teenagers' own identity and core values are aligned with it.
The mind set that supports programs has a theological basis. People who adhere to theological ideologies will hold to their beliefs in spite of the lessons of history, reason, science, and logic. They rationalize, dismiss, attack (verbally and sometimes physically) those that oppose their ideas because these ideologies cannot stand on their own merit.
Those of us who are free thinkers actually have the more difficult task of having to justify what we believe in.
Programs tell their young victims what to believe in and force compliance. Such tactics have no place in a free thinking democracy.
As someone already wrote, both neo conservatives and liberals jump on this bandwagon. The neo conservatives don't mind forcing adherence to their religious based ideology. The liberals tend toward the nanny state which must interfere with liberty to protect us from ourselves. Both are enemies of free will and free thinking.
Discussions of efficacy, available alternatives, abuse, etc are secondary to the inherent violation of a persons' ability to think for themselves and make decisions for themselves, express themselves freely, and choose their own path in life.
