Wow, I'm going to be partially in agreement with Sellam Ismail on something!
On Tue, 13 Jun 2000, Sellam Ismail wrote:
> > I forget the actual words, and who said it, but there is a saying that goes
> > something like this. "Those who are willing to trade thier freedom for a
> > little safety deserve neither freedom OR safety."
>
> It was Benjamin Franklin, and I know what you're talking about, but this
> is the totally wrong context.
>
> > I'm responsible for my own safety, and all the stupid lawsuits in the US
> > take away our freedom!
>
> Would you rather have the freedom to sue when you're legitimately
> deserving of compensation from being injured by an idiot or the freedom
> from being sued when you cause injury?
I agree; however, I think that with the help of some bad court
decisions and certain pea-brained politicians, people are misusing
this freedom. The problem is that there are laws that allow for
liability where no reasonable person would think there should be an
issue of liability. E.g., if someone injures themselves through their
own stupidity, they shouldn't be able to sue someone else, such as the
person on whose property the injury occured, whether the injured party
is a child or not.
E.g. if I claim to be knowledgeable about electonics, and get an
electic shock from testing a power supply in someone's store, whom I
didn't ask for information about how to do this safely from, or get
misleading information about this from, then how can it be reasonable
to put the responsibility on that other person? People need to accept
responsibility for their own actions - that's what is reasonable.
> > that goes something like, "Lawyers, the first ones up against the Wall when
> > the Revolution comes"?
>
> Until you actually need one...
Very true; there are some good ones out there who protect us when we
need them, and to label them all as money-grubbing sheisters is not
only unfair, but dangerous, as, while some of them are politicians,
and some cause problems, some of them also help protect us from the
damages caused by politicians, etc. Like any other group of people,
they're all different; some good, some bad, some intelligent, some a
few chips short of a working CPU.
--
R. D. Davis
rdd_at_perqlogic.com
http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd
410-744-4900
Received on Tue Jun 13 2000 - 23:05:58 BST