Three different, but very familiar, scenarios:
And then…
And finally…
At some point in American history these kinds of lawsuits would have been absolutely ludicrous. To hear about someone who’s trying to sue major fast food chains because he/she thought the food was healthier than it really was would have been likened to a person who sued Santa Claus for not giving him the video games he wanted. They are both astoundingly dumb lawsuits, and who would have thought that any judicial system would have taken them seriously?
Obviously, that point in time is not now. We’re hearing about the overweight women who couldn’t fit into a standard airplane seat and had to pay for a second one or else they wouldn’t be put on the flight. They felt like they had been slapped with the Hand of Discrimination, and were comtemplating a lawsuit against the airline. Despite the fact that they are the ones with the weight problem…
Then there’s over-played Cigarette Smokers vs. Major Distributors lawsuits. And the fact that the smokers have won via the “nicotine is addictive” argument makes it seem legitamate for more people to take up smoking. If the chain of events is to become addicted, get a disease, and then win large amounts of money for your sufferage, then give me a pack and I’ll smoke it all right now. Is this the message we are trying to send?
What those situations and the pictures above all have in common is one thing: people who would rather push the blame on others rather than take responsibility for their actions. It’s disgustingly clear, and so common nowadays that we’ve become desensitized by what the real core of the problem is: we Americans are selfish people. And perhaps I shouldn’t be saying this because after all the 9-11 stuff and the war on Iraq, the country is suddenly feeling a jolt of patriotism. I’m not being a traitor by saying what I’m saying…but I am making a point to say that being a super-power country doesn’t shield us from the fact that we are guilty of certain things. Selfishness is a primary one. We like the idea of freedom and liberty for all, but we don’t like to be responsible for the consequences of our actions that result from the use of such freedom/liberty and whatnot. It’s all about pointing fingers in our nation.
Sometimes I just want to find one of those people who feel like filing a stupid lawsuit, shake them really hard, and then scream: Your stupid ass is dumbing down our country! Because it is, in the end, making us look like idiots compared to everyone else. What all the news has shown other people is that Americans don’t realize that there is nicotine in cigarettes even though it’s printed EVERYWHERE and has been reported on EVERY POSSIBLE FORM OF MEDIA. Americans also didn’t know that coffee is a HOT BEVERAGE. That’s why they need to print the words HOT HOT HOT on all their coffee cups. And finally, obesity in America isn’t the fault of the consumer as much as it is the fault of the producer. What next? Does McDonald’s get to sue meat processing facilities for giving them meat that’s not fatfree?
Maybe the next lawsuit filed will be that person who didn’t get the gifts he wanted from Santa Claus. If it is, then most likely it’ll become national news—and just one more thing for us to be ashamed of.
34 days until the LSAT