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Good
morning <$firstname$>,
Have
you heard of the Stella
Awards? Apparently, once a year Colorado journalist
Randy Cassingham ranks the 10 most frivolous lawsuits in
the USA by "virtue" of their ridiculous claims
and outrageous judgements.
It
all started with 79 year old Stella Liebeck in 1992 who
sued McDonald's in New Mexico because she spilled hot coffee
in her parked car, burned her legs in the process - and
won US$ 640.000 compensation!
According
to one of many websites spreading the word about other people's
clumsiness and insolence, here is another one of these bizarre
top ranking incidents :
In
Nov 2000 Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, on the highway
with a brandnew mobile home, allegedly put the cruise control
on 70 miles an hour and went back to the kitchen to get
a cup of coffee. Much to his surprise, the vehicle swerved
off the road and overturned a few times.
He
sued the manufacturer for not warning him in the operating
manual that the car has to be steered when it is moving
- and was awarded US$ 1.750.000 plus a new mobile home by
a jury!
Coffee
doesn't agree with me either, but that's not the point.
When I arrived to live in South Africa, it was the law that
required black people to sit in separate buses, didn't allow
them to use the most popular beaches and forced them to
live with limited opportunities.
A
few years before I was born, German law allowed millions
of people to be herded into death camps.
Earlier
last century, the law in many countries prevented most women
on earth to vote, and had made slavery socially acceptable.
Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, and Socrates was murdered
because the law said it was OK to get rid of intellectual
dissidents that way.
Responsible
people know that they must live their lives by ethics rather
than rules.
I
suggest that we consult the integrity of our own mind before
we look to find some obscure law, rule or tradition to justify
virtually any kind of immoral behaviour.
Rules
are no reason to live in a certain way, wether they have
been set up by the UN or your social club. Personal responsibility
cannot be thrown overboard in any area of your life, whether
it involves decisions on fighting a war or how you dress,
what you eat, who you vote for and how you raise your children.
When
you think about it, you'll find that most evils perpetrated
on humanity have been brought about under the protective
custody of laws at the time. We only need to look across
the border at Zimbabwe right now.
I
am not asking you to deliberately break any laws, but I
am surprised sometimes how easily our ethics are compromised
by shiny badges and famous names, large companies and half-dead
institutions.
Without making a big splash about it, we can vote with our
feet and walk away from dubious practices. We can proceed
in a way as individuals who know how to take personal responsibility
for our actions.
Blaming
others for your own misfortunes or circumstances creates
a society of cowards hiding behind a grid of laws which
invites everyone to seek out the loopholes - and the dubious
fame of a high ranking in the Stella Awards !
Until
next time, all the best from :
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