🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3jpto8$3on@news.duke.edu>,
Paul Gronke <gronke@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>With their move toward tort reform, the Republican majority once again shows
>that ideology rules the Contract, not logical or reasoned reform.

DELETED

The lawsuits for product liability are some of the most frivolous in the
world.  Some jerk falls off a ladder and sues because there was no warning
label.  Some idiio cuts off fingers with a saw and sues because the guard
failed to have a warning label warning folks to be sure it was attached.  

We ALL suffer as a result of these suits.  Limiting product liability will
not only effect a savings on the cost of manufacturers, it will also have a
sobering effect on the sleeze-ball lawyers who promote such suits in hopes
of a multimillion dollar settlement.  What is implicit in the CONTRACT is
that every jerk does NOT necessarily deserve a day in court playing
"settlement roulette" with a jury.


>
>Congress: wake up.  There really isn't a problem in the product liability area.  Why
>are you doing this, except that large corporations want you to?

DELETED

Who do you think OWNS these evil corrupt corporations.  My God!  You sound
like some hairball right out of the '60's.  If you want reform, try reforming
from inside the corporations- not fighting them.  Let me guess, you carry a
copy of Thorstein Veblin in your hip pocket so that you have ready phrases
to shout while picketing.




>
>Just as the supposed budget balancing Republican Congress attacks the weakest
>members of our society in a sham attempt to balance the budget -- welfare

DELETED

Yeah- those poor "weak" members of society have their hands in the billfolds
of everyone who works and pays taxes.  To hell with them.  Let them quit
breeding, get jobs and get off the public dole.  If the welfare types would
spend half as much time working as they do gnashing teeth and whining for
more public money, they wouldn't even need public handouts.


-- 
Thomas A. Gauldin       Here's to the land of the longleaf pine,
Raleigh, NC             The summerland where the sun doth shine,
BSRB45A on Prodigy      Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great,
FAX (919) 676-1404      Here's to Downhome, the Old North State.

On 10 Mar 1995, Thomas Gauldin wrote:
> In article <3jpto8$3on@news.duke.edu>,
> Paul Gronke <gronke@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
> >With their move toward tort reform, the Republican majority once again shows
> >that ideology rules the Contract, not logical or reasoned reform.
> 
> The lawsuits for product liability are some of the most frivolous in the
> world.  Some jerk falls off a ladder and sues because there was no warning
> label.  Some idiio cuts off fingers with a saw and sues because the guard
> failed to have a warning label warning folks to be sure it was attached.  

What a great example. Why was there a guard on the saw in the first 
place? Was it out of the safety consciousness of the manufacturer? Was it 
the result of a federal regulation? Could it have been the result of 
product liability suits? 

A lot of reasonable safety measures come about only as the result of 
federal regulation or numerous liability suits. The House is foolishly 
running to weaken both modes of consumer protection. Thank goodness there 
are a few clear-headed Republicans in the Senate who didn't sign any damn 
contract. 

> Let me guess, you carry a
> copy of Thorstein Veblin in your hip pocket so that you have ready phrases
> to shout while picketing.

Actually, since he teaches at Duke, he's clearly a socialist. Since 
Duke is private, Brother Jesse hasn't been able to purge the commies 
there the way he promised to do at Carolina many years ago. Leftist 
leaders like Terry Sanford have insured that every member of Duke's 
faculty has a hip-pocket copy of Veblin.

See how dumb statements like that sound?
Cheers,
------------------------------------------------------------
  Mark Rupright      UNC Physics     mark_rupright@unc.edu
  Disclaimer: We are all figments of my dog's imagination.
              Blame her. 

George Greene (greeneg@ambrose.cs.unc.edu) wrote:

:    > DUH.
:    > Listen: EVERYBODY ALREADY KNEW that.
:    > This is NOT helpful.

:  :   Sorry, George, many refuse to acknowledge it.  

: For sufficiently small values of "many" and "everybody", 
: we are both right.  But more importantly, you have cut 
: too much here.  The antecedent of "it", the whole issue
: that this is about, is missing.  What I was allegeing that 
: everybody already knew was the following:
:  : :    A lot of reasonable safety measures come
:  : :    about only as the result of federal regulation
:  : :    or numerous liability suits.

Ummm, hate to be a semantic, but "sufficiently small values of many and
everybody?"  By this, I would assume, you mean "you," which may actually
make the comment valid information for what I will call the sufficiently
large value of "many" and "everybody" known as "us."

: It somewhat amazes me that you could talk about that
: as one of MY goals.  Motive ascertainment is impossible.
: Give up.

:    > It won't help.  There aren't enough clear-headed LIBERALS
:    > with SENSE enough to even ADDRESS the problem.  A Real Problem
:    > doesn't immediately become Unreal just because the Republicans
:    > have decided to exploit it.

:  :   You missed the boat here.  There is no evidence of a problem with 
:  :   product liability 

: THERE ARE MOUNTAINS AND MOUNTAINS OF EVIDENCE.

: You act as though the fact that it is anecdotal or
: statistically unlikely makes it irrelevant.
: Real people's oxen are being gored here and some
: of us do have sense enough to care.

I don't think it is necessarily irrelevant, but it is certainly not the
plague upon society it might be.  There is a touch of Utpoia in what you
want to go towards, and I just don't think it's goaing to happen...
Call me a pessimist if you will, but even in social issues there is a
'filth tolerance' and we have to compare what is possible with what is
real.  Regardless of there being "Mountains" of evidence, there also
proof that the system as it is is working within normal parameters (can
Paramount sue me for saying that on the Internet?)

:  :  and malpractice suits (malpractice insurance, perhaps, but that is
:  :   a different problem).

: Malpractice insurance is NOT a different problem.
: Malpractice insurance premiums are alleged to be high
: because of the need to defend against these awards.
: Whether the allegation is true or not is not even the point.

I'll certainly agree with you on this one.  A lot of MD's in the
military are still there becuase they do not have to pay malpractice
insurance: it is an amazing bonus to their otherwise small salary for
people in their profession.

:  : The populist torch is being carried right now by Newt Gingrich.

: DUH.

Before the whole world erupts into a frenzy of "DUH"s on both side,
please remember the possibility that your audience is not necessarily as
enlightened as either of you (referring to M. Gronke and M. Greene).
Condescencion (sp?) will get you nowhere (though a Rand-McNally in your
office might if you were me...)

: This faction-fight within the party over populism
: has been being waged approximately forever.
: Where the fuck have YOU been?

:  : Right now, the public thinks the Republicans are the party 
:  : of the common man.  

: As long as the common man is a REAL man.  I.e., white, straight,
: hard-working, etc., etc.

Well, what is the "public"?  White, straight, hard-working...  I suppose
that is why it is called the majority:  the Republicans are appealing to
them, and quite honestly there aren't enough Menscheviks in the majority
right now to fight against the promise of advances for themselves to
support the rights of other people.


:  : You are seemingly as misled by the anecdotes as the 
:  : mass public and Congress.

: Esse quam videri.

So are you telling us that you /are/ being mislead as opposed to just
/seeming/ misled?

: I *DON'T GIVE A SHIT* if they are exceptions.
: The mere fact that a wrong has fallen below some threshold
: of %occurrence does not make it ignorable if the the threshold
: is still too high.  Let me try to draw an analogy.  Suppose
: Duke changed its mind and decided that 1) nobody who didn't score
: over 700 on BOTH parts of the SAT AND all 3 of the Math, English,
: and 1 other ACH would ever be admitted any more, AND 2) No black
: students would ever be admitted any more.  Suppose we then brought
: you a delegation of black people with the requisite five 700+s and 
: said "this is blatant racism and you have to sue to get us admitted."
: Your response here is "we can't spare the resources; there's only a few 
: of you; black students with those scores are the EXCEPTIONS, not the
: rule; we'll instead be suing to de-legitimate the test scores as an
: instrument and trying to raise the scores of the much larger
: numbers of black students who score half what you did."
: "Allies" my hairy light-brown smartASS.  This would be a completely
: false trichotomy.  Any advocate worth his salt would view the
: three goals co-operatively.

However, this is making a presumption that the cases are being
completely misjudged.  Always.  Without exception.  Surely you must
agree that the system works /some/ of the time.  How often do you think
it fails in its job of sorting out the truth from everything else?  How
often do you think the punishment is commensurate with the crime?  I'm
also not sure I entirely get your analogy, so I'll keep working with
it.

: Which are irrelevant whenever the judge OR the jury has
: already made up its mind which side it's on.

Well, this situation would make the system flawed regardless what
seciont of the law we were talking about.  Biased jurors and judges
destroy any kind of justice and will continue to do so as long as people
are allowed to make value judgements on things like Truth, Justice and
the American Way. I don't think you can mark this as being a system
flaw.  Then again, pehaps you do (?).

__________________________________________________________
Michael R. Gustafson II
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science
Duke University