CDR: Re: And you thought Nazi agitprop was controversial?

[Steven Furlong]

Tim May wrote:
> We as a culture have swung far away from "sticks and stones may break
> my bones but names will never hurt me" toward a culture of lawsuits.
> And the lawyer lobby supports and embraces this culture, getting laws
> passed making it easier every day to suppress speech.

For my first year of law school I'm taking Contracts, Criminal Law,
Legal Writing, and Torts. The books for the first three subjects aren't
too bad from a "lawyers are scum" perspective, but both of my torts
books had me screaming within twenty pages. In one, the authors argue
for greatly increasing the scope of tort offenses and reducing the
permissible defenses [1]. As if the US doesn't have enough frivolous
and nonsensical lawsuits. In the other, on page 3 yet, the authors
argue that if someone is injured such that he can no longer work,
_someone_ should be held financially liable because society has lost
the first person's wages [2]. That seems just half a step from saying
that the people are the property of the state. Maybe I'm reading too
much into poorly-phrased paragraphs, but I haven't seen anything in
either book to contradict the bad impression.

[1] _Understanding Torts_, Diamond, Levine, and Madden, Matthew
Bender.
[2] _Torts and Compensation_ 3rd ed, Dobbs and Hayden, West
Publishing


See http://www.overlawyered.com for a jaundiced view of the legal
system. The site editor, Walter Olsen, has particular "issues" with
plaintiff's lawyers.


-- 
Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere     Have GNU, will travel
   518-374-4720     sfurlong at acmenet.net