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blame game, part 2

This is just what I said except he gets paid for saying it.

From Ben Stein, How to Ruin American Enterprise

3) Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke. Make it second nature for someone who is overweight to blame the restaurant that served him fries. Encourage a legal process that can kill a drug company for any mistakes in self-medication. Make it a general rule that anyone with more money than a plaintiff is responsible for anything harmful that a plaintiff does. Promulgate the pitiful joke that Americans are hereby exempt from any responsibility for their own actions--so long as there are deep pockets around to be rifled.

Read the rest, it's very good.

Thanks to reader Suze for the link

Comments

Stein's book "How to Ruin Your Life" is really good too.

Ben Stein is one of my heroes. Few people know him beyond his game show and "Bueller?...Bueller?..." But he is an incredibly intelligent person whose monthly feature "Ben Stein's Journal" (in the VRWC mouthpiece "The American Spectator") about society, politics, economics, family, & life in general has been must-reading for me for several years.

I'm bored of people insisting that they have someone to blame for their own stupidity.

I thought litigation was for folks, who due to crippling accidents and such, needed help to compensate them for their reduced ability to support themselves.

Turns out, it's a piggy bank to compensate people for failing to make that last evolutionary leap a little while back.

I'm tired of people not taking responsibility for themselves. If they want a scapegoat, give me a baseball bat and five minutes in a room with their spoilt asses, and i'll mail them the cheque to their hospital beds.

Tsk. People...

I also enjoy(ed) his monthly columns in Penthouse..... can I say I read Penthouse here?

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