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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (53856)	8/6/2002 12:24:04 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

It's not clear whether you're talking strict liability or negligence. If GM makes a car which is capable of driving 90 miles an hour and I drive it 90 in a school zone and kill a child, is GM responsible because they made the car? IMO, that's parallel to the argument that because McDonald's makes a hamburger and parent A feeds their kids too many of them, McDonald's is responsible. Every product made by anybody has the potential to harm somebody. Heck, take your teaching. If you look disapprovingly at a child in your classroom because they are misbehaving and they get scared and wet their pants and are embarrassed by that and suffer nightmares, are you responsible for those nightmares? But for your look, they would not have happened, so we do have a but-for relationship. But I don't hold you responsible. Do you hold yourself responsible?

To: epicure who wrote (53856)	8/6/2002 8:57:57 AM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Except that I think businesses need to pay the real costs of doing business. You are being uncharacteristically naive here, X. Companies that manufacture ladders (as an example) face a predictably steady stream of civil suits for injuries resulting from their use. Many of these suits involve persons who have been ridiculously careless in the way they used their ladder, way off the scale of what a reasonable person would know that you shouldn't do. These suits are very often settled out of court as a nuisance matter, with recognition that juries can be much too sympathetic to a plaintiff who shows up in court with crutches and wrapped in bandages. You are correct that this is a normal cost of doing business. Where you are wrong, is in who pays for it. You and I will pay for it the next time we buy a ladder. It is normal for all firms to pass on cost increases to their customers. It is not Brown and Williamson who are paying for the cancer-causing awards to smokers ... it is the remaining smokers who are paying for it. That's one of the reasons why cigarettes cost $5.00 per pack now. You, X, are paying for these rewards to stupid and greedy people, every time you go to the store to buy just about anything.