By Chris Barts
Human beings are great at dodging problems. If given a chance, anyone will at least try to put his problems off on another person or group. And this is not a new thing. Back in 1917, Lenin convinced the Russian peasant to blame the rich and the nobles for all their problems. The result was the violent Russian Revolution, creating one of the most oppressive regimes in history, the Soviet Union. The French did the same thing, creating generations of alternating instability and totalitarianism until a stable government was established. But perhaps the textbook case is the Nazi party in Germany. Hitler convinced Germans to blame their bad state on various ethnic groups within Germany, creating a very harsh, militaristic, violent regime that lasted from 1933 to 1945. Americans are guilty of the same thing. But we don't use racial violence like during the age of lynchings. We Americans, we're after money.
I'm talking about frivolous lawsuits. America seems to be full of people who live to make a profit off of their own stupidity. Lawyers also seem willing to get just as rich off of these stupid, worthless cases. How stupid? This stupid: The city of San Carlos, California filed a lawsuit against Ryan McDonell, a kid who was hit by a city truck. The city wanted to recover the driver's medical expenses, workers compensation, and repairs to the truck. The National Parks Service was sued for $2.5 million when visitors to a federal park were struck by lightning. A disgruntled student who received an F in German sued the University of Michigan for $853,000. Frank Menssina of Centerville, Pennsylvania sued the Pennsylvania Transportation Department for $5,764,609,563,143,700.48 for running his reputation as a driver by suspending his license. That's larger than the national debt. But perhaps the most frivolous lawsuit I've yet encountered is this one: General Motors are sued for $6 trillion, that's $6,000,000,000,000, on behalf of all persons everywhere, born and unborn, and all future generations. That is an ill-defined claim, an outrageous amount, with no reason for the suit in the first place. No reasonable person would dream of filing such a lawsuit.
The startling realization that you are to blame for all of your problems and have been ever since a very young age is one of the things that define an emotionally mature person. Nobody without such knowledge can be anything but a drag on society. And drags they are. Lawsuits like the ones above drive up the price of everything and for a simple reason: Money has to come from somewhere. Physical cash can be printed, but the actual value behind that money is a limited quantity, produced by very few industries. Therefore, companies only have limited profits, and must maintain them. If they get sued hand over foot, the price of their product goes up because the cost of legal fees must be paid. The value of that product may stay the same, but the price still goes up, making the real cost of the product go up. That's called inflation, all caused by stupid greed.
