[Faceman]

there's a very wise saying that goes:

"sh** happens"

you can't always blame somebody for damage that occurs to you

everybody makes a mistake sometimes and every mistake made affects a lot of persons in SOME way. but common practice is to only let someone pay for the direct damage he has caused because else it would be blown out of proportion.

If for example someone causes an accident which causes a traffic jam which causes a corporate guy to appear late at a meeting which causes the company to miss a deal which causes their stock to drop...
would you really want him to pay
- the direct damage
- compensation for the emotional stress of the corp. guy
- the money the corp. is now worth less at the stock exchange
- the therapist bills for the corporate officials
- ...

just because he forgot to look on the right before turning?
"bad things happen" and you can't always nail them to one guy and make him pay
because - all other reasonable arguments aside - he probably CAN'T pay. Now where's the point in making him a slave who hasn't even enough money to pay off the interest on the damage he (indirectly) caused. The "victims" don't get reimbursed and his life is ruined because of one little fault.

So if we start THIS kind of legislation you can stick something to everybody sending everybody you want to jail which is the perfect ground for a dictatorship to grow on.


In case of our pilot.
He made a mistake by making an inappropriate joke.
Airport security made the mistake of holding him in custody when it was already clear that he had no bomb.

Of course we could stick it to him, we could stick it to them, we could stick it to all of them and make them pay for flight delay, missed appointements, missed hotel reservations, ...
but would you really want a world where you can't make even one little wisecrack without being sued for a million dollars?

[ 08-12-2003, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Faceman ]