I have a splinter in my hand. I'm going to sue the lumber company because they should have removed all splinters. Then, I'm going to sue the trees because it's somehow all a conspiracy.

Not really, but that's the attitude of a majority of people. They'll claim the good and blame the bad.

Oh, yeah. Frivilous lawsuits have got to go. I got in a conversation yesterday about that lady that burned herself with McDonald's coffee- and WON- let me pause there for a second. First of all, that judge should have been immediately disbarred. The proper response there was...

"You burned your legs...? With coffee...? Hmm. Here's some gauze. Get out of my courtroom and stop wasting my time."

Anyway this kind of nonsense is a microcosm (useless big word of the day) of what is going on in America. "Nobody's responsible for anything! Especially not ME! Why, last night I got eyestrain from reading SIT! I'm gonna sue CD, it must be his fault!!!"

We need a law that requires people to man up to what they do. It'll never happen, of course, but I can dream. Say, for instance, some idiot who doesn't know a lot about electricity decides to poke around in a wall socket to find out what's wrong. ZAP- 110 volts to your hand, owwie. He sues the guy that built his house for not putting little yellow "danger- voltage" signs above every socket. Now, were this to actually happen, he might actually win. Especially if he lives out in the 9th Socialist Republic- er, District Court. But this is what SHOULD happen:

Stupid Idiot: Judge, I hurt myself. His fault. Owwie. I want 10 million dollars.

House-Builder Guy: Your Honor, I figured he would know what an electrical outlet was.

Stupid Idiot: But JUUUUDGE... it wasn't my FAAUULL-

Judge: Shut up, stupid idiot. Here's the deal. You- pay the guy that built your house the price of the socket you jacked up. Pay me for wasting my time. And here's your sentence: [Soup Nazi-ish] No electricity for you for two weeks!

See, if the judge had told that silly old lady that her punishment for being so dumb was 1) you never get to drink coffee again, because you obviously don't know how, 2) No fast food for you, ever, and 3) Your license is suspended for a month. Since you spilled the coffee while you were driving, you apparently can't drive, either.

*Wheeew*

Kay there I go being all long-winded (long-typed? long-written?) again. Not wanting to take responsibility for my inability to say things in a concise fashion, I blame CD for giving me so much fun stuff to write about. Furthermore, I blame Dell for making this computer and sending it to me, and Noah Webster for all these words, without which this comment would've been much shorter.

Nothing "semi" about that post. As a political movement this is exactly what we need to be focusing on. Responsibility is everything. Another cause and effect would be our responsibilities as citizens, parents, or even just as humans is the cause, our rights and freedoms are the effect. A lot of people, and you know who I'm referring to, need to get it through their thick skulls that when responsibility is taken away, the resulting rights and freedoms go with it.

Have you ever considered starting a blog, NCO Guy? You seem to have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

Just asking.

Arnold of California is threatening to slap a 75% tax on punitive damage awards. If only he would, and make that tax apply before legal fees.

I've often wondered the same thing. I gave up on finding any ::cough:: logic in the reasoning quite a while ago, though tracing potential 'blame trees' was a good form of entertainment and conversation for a while.

(And I agree with CD.. NCO guy - you really do have quite a bit to say, and you say it well. I would think a blog might be right up your alley. :) )

A lot of intelligent, well-spoken humans come here. That puts a smile on my face to know there are rational humans in the world.
NCO guy, you have a great way with words. If you don't start a blog. you should run for office! You'd have my vote!

Let me see ... who gets the blame? Seems the answer is so very very simple ... The Devil made me do it!

Aw, shucks, y'all...

Actually, I did think about it for a hot second a couple days ago. But I'd never have time. The last two weeks I've been on a kind of working vacation, hence the bajillion comments. But now I'm back at the house with the wife and rugrats, which is great, but not much time for computer stuff.

But anyway, thanks. You guys made my day.

Tiger, in the case of a lot of liberals, that's actually true. But telling them that might somehow trample thir religious freedoms.

You forgot that students who score low on tests aren't responsible - it's the fault of the "biased" test developers. And yes, parents do sue to get testing requirements waived for their kids on the basis of the "bias" in the tests.

OK, I'm about to get myself caught in a pickle here, but do you think this has something to do with the psychologization of society. The mental health fields major on finding the root causes of behavior. Trouble is, the root cause is never the choices of the individual. It's always mom and dad's fault, or hubby's fault, or witchie-poo's fault, etc, etc.
I said I am getting into a pickle because here I am blaming psychologists for these problems, which sounds like I am passing the responsibility buck. I guess they should come back at me and say "its not our fault that people listen to us and take us so seriously."

Hmm...

"Freud lied! Responsibility died!"

You all have a really good point and it's made me think. I agree with judges dismissing cases of people who are blaming fast food on making them fat. Maybe the fast food industry should just put warnings on the bags like tabacco companies do so no stupid people can say they didn't know fast food was damaging to their health. People can't sue tobacco companies because they have warnings that smoking may cause health problems. So if there are labels on the products of fast food saying may cause health problems, then stupid people won't say they weren't warned. That's just my thought, I'm doing a college report on the effects of fast food. Thanks for taking the time to read this.