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About the coffee thing, whatever happened to personal responsibility? She knew the coffee was hot. She should have been careful. She wasn’t, she was clumsy, spilled it and it burned her. She had some serious injuries and that’s tragic, but she was the one who spilled it, so it was her own fault. If a server had spilled the coffee it would have been another matter, but in this case it was her fault and she should have to pay for her own medical bills. Also, 700 complaints over a ten year period doesn’t sound like that much considering how many cups of coffee are served every day at the thousands of McDonalds restaurants around the world.
Seriously?
If I slip and fall on the ground in front of your house, that’s my fault. But if you pour oil on your sidewalk every day, and over the last ten years 700 people have told you not to pour oil on the sidewalk, and then I slip and fall and break my leg, then I believe you are at fault. Oh, and, to make the dynamic complete, we should include the fact that you invite people to use the sidewalk in front of your house in friendly commercials played over and over again on television.The woman didn’t sue because she spilled her coffee. She sued because the coffee she spilled gave her seriously burns that required skin grafts.
But if I play friendly commercials, telling people how I pour oil on my sidewalk, and then those people come, specifically to enjoy the oil on my sidewalk, having fun sliding around on it and then someone falls and hurts his head saying the oil was much more slippery than he expected, I still believe it’s his fault. He knew it was slippery, that’s why he came, he knew there was a risk associated with that, still he wasn’t careful and got hurt. His responsibility. If I pour oil on the sidewalk for no reason and then don’t tell anybody and the person slipping on it doesn’t know it’s there, then yes, it would be my responsibility, because the person injured wouldn’t have known of the danger.
Re:
quote \”Ryan\:\”Smoking in public hurts others, cars driving on roads affect others, Bailsongs only damage the users own fingers.\”So, if I OWN a restaurant, I shouldn’t be able to decide if patrons can smoke or not? The second part is a ridiculous leap.
what second part?
If you own a resturant that is open to the public use, you must follow the rules of said public. If you want to start a private club, then you can do it and establish your own set of rules. Smoking in the workplace was also a good point. In order to understand this issue, you have to look at how segragation was treated and removed. Very simialer.
Cars being driven by their very nature are dangerous to many non involved partys, so they also fall under a public sphere of influence.
As to the Balisong. I should google it but I got other fish to fry. Any of these weapons that gets added to the banned list has someone press the issue first. Things which do not have any other uses are easy to ban. Brass knuckles became paperweights….I have a very old memory of Mothers lobbying to get rid of Balisongs do to their children cutting up their fingers when playing with them. There is also the rapid openning issue, which switch blades share. Switch blades and silettos also have a spring loaded mechinism which puts them into their own catagory. Why do you need the spring? To kill.
But just because the thing could be used to kill should not be enough to make it illegal….
\”]\”Smoking in public hurts others, cars driving on roads affect others, Bailsongs only damage the users own fingers.\”
This was a joke, lighten up a little….As to the car milege, Gas tax for roads will become outdated with electric and fuel effecient vehicles. Californians are allready complaining that they want an upfront Tax on hybrids!! They see it as a penalty for going Green. While GPS tracking seems Orwellian, and with Bushco in power, I don’t like the idea either. Maybe scanners that track a sticker in the window? You could always change the sticker, or buy non-id stickers like we do with cell phones….
I realize that Americans Honestly paying their fair share of taxes all on their own is to much to ask. We will have to track them….
Giantkiller, excellent, you are invited to walk on my sidewalk any time. Or to drive on the street at any time, since you clearly know that it is dangerous to drive and therefore it is your own fault if someone else hits you with their car.
Ryan- I wasn’t saying that anyone on this board was neglecting the Patriot Act because they were a Republican. And I’m not here to defend the Democratic party because I’m not saying they are so great either- its just that for how much certain right wing people/groups talk about defeding freedoms yet never mention the Patriot Act (I’ve read the former NRA vice president has spoken against it, but not the current NRA folks- I could be wrong).
John,
Thanks for the generous invitation! You must really like me!! 😀 Just make sure to inspect your sidewalk daily. Make sure it’s all even, so I don’t accidently trip over a stone plate. If you use lawn sprinklers, please towel off the sidewalk after each use – lest I should step onto the wet pavement, slip and hit my head. Clear away all glass and branches, they could endanger me, because I’m nearsighted and tend to daydream. If not, and I will get terribly hurt, I guess I would just have to sue you for millions – or maybe the NTC, because they might have more money for me and you work for them and you invited me to your sidewalk on their official forum.
See, this is just going further and further – always someone else’s fault. Let’s find the person (or corporation) with the most money to sue. It’s ridiculous. It seems to me that with that reasoning, everytime someone gets hurt in Krav Maga class the NTC should pay for that person’s injuries, after all it’s their responsibility to keep the class safe, right?
As for driving, if I drive safely along a road and then another person runs a red light and hits me, it’s that person’s fault, so yes, he should pay for damages. If I drive along a road and get distracted by something and hit a lamppost, then that’s my fault and I should pay for the damages and not sue the manufacturer of the lamppost or the street designer for putting it there.
I’m just curious and not trying to provoke an onslaught of partisan responses, but what is it specifically about the Patriot Act that causes so much outrage? I hear from the left and right wings that it infringes on rights but I never hear about specifics. Has anyone been personally affected by this Act?
just a few things like being arrested without charges and detained without a lawyer or without anyone being told(Disapeared they used to say in Russia), having your home searched without warrent and without notification, giving powers to secret service and FBI without Judicial review, tracking book sales and library records. It goes on and on….Most people trust the Gov to do this with responcibility, but we demand that this stuff expire, and be reviewed again every few years. It can not be made perminant.
an example of abuse? I have a few, but I dare someone to give an exmple of it actually being used to stop terrorists….
I thought the FBI had to get permission from a federal court to obtain business and other records. Are you suggesting that the Patriot Act invokes new methods of \”Conceal Legal Precedent\” and \”Hide the Judge?\”
quote :having your home searched without warrent and without notificationSection 213 is not subject to the PATRIOT Actís sunset provision. So its somewhat moot to mention this one.
Obviously there is some comments you made that would cause concern in any fair minded American citizen.
I found this website that had some useful information http://www.patriotdebates.com/weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20051215-112826-9119r.htm
Giantkiller,
So based on your response, it seems it can be the other person’s fault if there is a reasonable expectation of acceptable behavior. That’s what I’m arguing, while you are just using hyperbole.And yes, you’re welcome to walk on my sidewalk any time. Just make sure you keep walking. 😀
Keep walking? 😥 I was kind of hoping you’d invite me inside, so we could enjoy a nice, hot cup of coffee together! 😀
Am I really exaggerating that much? How often do you hear about ridiculous lawsuits? I’ve actually heard of plans by lawyers to sue gun manufacturers for the death of anyone shot by their guns. So one guy shoots the other and the gunmaker gets sued. Sounds like hyperbole, but it’s reality.
As for the coffee incident, I still don’t know what was so unacceptable about the behaviour of the restaurant’s owners. The lady ordered hot coffee. That’s what she got. If it had been lukewarm, I’m sure she would have sent it back. The danger here (as we say in Krav Maga) was the hot coffee. Not only did she know about the danger, she asked for the danger and paid good money for it. As soon as the money changed hands, she owned that coffee, heat and all. If she spilled it then, it became her problem.
By the way, I’m not against all lawsuits. Some have merit. If I go to the hospital to have my appendix removed and wake up to find my leg missing, then yes, I have a case. I was out cold during the operation, I had told them repeatedly what they were supposed to remove and then they still made a mistake. Nothing really I could have done to prevent it. In that case, even a compensation of a few million would be fine, since I would now be permanently disabled.
Another example, and see if you agree here, was something that happened at the NTC. I went into the locker room and slipped on a large puddle of water that was completly invisible until I stepped into it. It was also in a location where logically there shouldn’t be any water. I could not have anticipated it or seen the danger, even while looking at the floor. I fell, got a small bruise from falling and got my shoes wet, but nothing serious. I told the front desk immediatly, concerned for the safety of my fellow students. I was told they couldn’t clean it up, I suggested putting up a sign, but when I went back into the locker room half an hour later, the puddle was still there and there was no sign. If someone had slipped on it and broken something, in that case, I think the NTC should have compensated that person, although in that case, maybe you would have disagreed? 😉
By the way, I just had to pay 500$ in medical bills for an injury I received while training at the NTC. There goes my Christmas. Will you compensate me? Or will you tell me that it’s my own fault, I should have known taking self-defense classes could result in possible injury? Well, if taking self-defense classes is potentially dangerous, so is handling hot coffee.
To me, it’s all about whether or not I know a certain danger exists and, if I do know that it exists, whether I choose to disregard and/or accept that danger. If you pour oil on your sidewalk and I know it’s there and I come over just to have fun sliding around on it and then I fall and hit my head, it’s my own fault. If I slip on an invisible puddle of water inside the locker room of a gym and break my leg I think I should be compensated, because I had no way of knowing or seeing that that danger existed and it should have been the responsibility of the gym to make sure the locker room was safe.
Giantkiller,
Actually, I think the puddle thing is terrible and I wish it would have been addressed immediately.But you’re still tilting at windmills with the self defense/coffee comparison. Common sense (and the page-long waiver we make you sign) tells us that training with punches/kicks/grabs/weapons = risk of injury. You can’t possibly argue that we should all accept a reasonable risk that when we order a cup of coffee we’ll get burns that hospitalize us and require skin grafts.
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