Recently a teenager in Texas was found guilty due to "affluenza." WTF? Is that a real thing? Affluenza was a term coined by British psychologist Oliver James as a mental condition and anti consumer theory in which the desire to have more leads to emotional distress and/or having so much that you are wasteful with what you have. The judge ordered that this teenager serve 10 years of probation after killing 4 people while driving drunk. Here is my problem with this. 1) He killed four people. 2) He was drinking and driving. 3) He was drinking underage. All three of these are illegal. Where is the affluenza? What we truly have is a case of Ididn'tgetmyassbeatenoughasakiditis. The real problem here is that the child lacked discipline and as a result caused this. The parents lack of involvement in this kids life caused this behavior, but I believe that everyone is responsible for their own actions. Once again this teenager is not being held accountable.
I buy a cup of hot coffee. I spill said coffee in my lap. How is that not my fault? How would I have been unaware that the coffee would have been hot? But Stella Liebeck did just that. She then sued McDonald's and was awarded $2.6 million by a jury. A judge lowered the award to just over $600,000. But damn, where is personal accountability?
There are stories all over the news about burglars who break into someones home. The homeowner than shoots the intruder. The intruder than turns around and sues the owner. If the homeowner would have shot and killed the intruder than it would have been considered justifiable homicide. The courts are forcing people to shoot to kill.
I don't blame the lawyers, they are doing there job. It is their responsibility to defend their clients or advocate for their clients. I blame the jury's who respond with emotion instead of fact. I blame the judges for allowing such nonsense. Ultimately it is the legislature's fault for not passing laws to protect the victim's. In the late 90's John Walsh of America's Most Wanted Fame, advocated a Constitutional Amendment that would protect victim's. This Amendment has had the backing of every Attorney General and President since Janet Reno and Bill Clinton. The text of the amendment from the National Victim's Constitutional Amendment Passage website is as follows:
Section 1. The rights of a crime victim to fairness, respect, and dignity, being capable of protection without denying the constitutional rights of the accused, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State. The crime victim shall, moreover, have the rights to reasonable notice of, and shall not be excluded from, public proceedings relating to the offense, to be heard at any release, plea, sentencing, or other such proceeding involving any right established by this article, to proceedings free from unreasonable delay, to reasonable notice of the release or escape of the accused, to due consideration of the crime victim's safety, and to restitution. The crime victim or the crime victim's lawful representative has standing to fully assert and enforce these rights in any court. Nothing in this article provides grounds for a new trial or any claim for damages and no person accused of the conduct described in section 2 of this article may obtain any form of relief.
Section 2. For purposes of this article, a crime victim includes any person against whom the criminal offense is committed or who is directly harmed by the commission of an act, which, if committed by a competent adult, would constitute a crime.
Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it has been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within 14 years after the date of its submission to the States by the Congress. This article shall take effect on the 180th day after the date of its ratification.Congress also need to address frivolous lawsuits where people are suing for obscene amounts of money where there is a personal accountability factor. Perhaps we need to incorporate the French system in which a plaintiff in a case is responsible for all court costs of the defendant if the verdict is for the defendant.
Love me, hate me, everyone is entitled to my opinion.
You should watch the documentary, "Hot Coffee." It talks about the Liebeck v. McDonald's case and gives a little more insight into exactly what happened. I understand your overall argument but that case has been grossly misrepresented by the media. That coffee was 5x hotter than it needed to be, McDonald's had been informed of the problem by many past consumers and continued to do nothing about it, and she only asked for them to pay her medical costs. Her injuries were horrific and she only took them to court when they refused to pay her bills and refused to lower the temperature of their coffee.
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