Forum Overview :: Motherfucking News :: Re: This post is so OVER! It's so 1999, dude.

[quote name="The Monopoly Guy"][quote name="Lizard_King"][quote name="I need clarification"] Eh, half a dozen of one, etc. It's not like the consumers who smoked tobacco and got cancer and died didn't pay for their share of the blame, if there is any. Anyway, it's still not legislation. Nobody's put any restrictions on the sale of tobacco that aren't similar to restrictions on other industries (pornography, alcohol, car sales, etc.).[/quote] Exactly. It's not legislation, in that it conforms to the republican model of determining what is legal and what isn't, which carries a certain degree of mandatory public scrutiny before it can take place. With these lawsuits, they avoid any semblance of republican processes and have a similar practical result (destroying the industry or rendering it a crippled cash-cow for the government and themselves). [/quote] You keep saying "these lawsuits," and I'm talking about tobacco in particular. Unless you're excluding tobacco, in which case ignore the rest of this paragraph. In any case, the restrictions placed on tobacco sales and advertising following the settlement of the various lawsuits the industry weathered in the 90s are the exact same restrictions enacted by "republican legislation" previously: don't sell to minors, warn consumers of the health risks related to smoking. They are free to conduct business exactly as they've always done, minus the public deception. The payouts to the states arranged by the terms of the settlements is not legislation, and doesn't stop the tobacco industry from any business dealings that fall within already existing laws. If you're saying the payouts were a form of legislation or business restriction, I reply that they're the cost of settling a lawsuit resultant from deceptive busines practices. If you're objecting to the states getting the money from the settlement, I guess we can rehash the old pinko socialist medicine argument again and again. But finding fault with the way the states handle their medical expenses doesn't excuse the tobacco companies from paying their fines. If the city puts up a school crosswalk in the middle of a freeway and I speed through it every single day, killing kids each time, I can't later say, "Well, it's a stupid place for a crosswalk, I shouldn't have to pay for the damage I've done." [quote name = "INC"] [quote name = "Li_K"]A careful reading of my post will reveal that I did not endorse lawsuits against gun manufacturers, liquor distributors, etc. Each case has to be tried on its own merits. That's the way it should be. If it's revealed, for example, that Seagram's is adding ingredients to their gin that hastens liver disease and not informing the public of it, then they may be culpable. As far as I know, they're not doing that.[/quote] I know you weren't. I was just expanding on my earlier points, and I did not mean to imply that you necessarily were opposed. Although I'm sure we'll hit that point eventually.[/quote] Surprisingly, despite my strong anti-gun leanings, I am not an advocate of any sort class-action lawsuit against gun manufacturers. I think there are better ways to enact sensible gun control laws in this country, but the debate is so ridiculously skewed by the NRA that any sort of "republican legislation" seems, for the time being at least, completely unimaginable. [quote name = "L_K"][quote name="INC"]Yeah, it's not as succinct and meaningful as "I hate trial lawyers." Do you also hate pineapples?[/quote] No. Why would you say such an awful thing? What did pineapples ever do to you?[/quote] More like what was done to me with a pineapple. Anyway, in your jihad against trial lawyers, I hope you'll make room for their tax-paid equivalents. I've ranted about forfeiture laws before, but if we're going to go crazy defending every letter of the 2nd Amendment, I'd like some attention paid to the 4th. Long before the War on Terror and the PATRIOT Act and Sister Patriot Act II, the legendary War on Drugs was used as an excuse to enact forfeiture laws that are absolutely mind-boggling. Scream all you want about a woman pouring scalding-hot coffee in her lap and suing McDonald's, then read about the convenience-store owner in Miami who over the course of a few months built a fence around his parking lot, put up stadium-style lights, called the local cops repeatedly to ask them to increase the patrols in his area at night, and still lost his store and land to the government when it was determined small-time dealers were using his parking lot at night to conduct business. Or your pet peeve (I seem to sense), the small airline industry - check how many small (single plane) operators lost their property (the plane) and livelihood (again, the plane) because they were foolish enough to believe the guys who rented it were not lying when they said they weren't drug smugglers. Those sorts of lawsuits are absolutely the worst, and "trial lawyers" are the ones you're going to want to turn to when you get the indictment, not against you, but against your new house, car, or whatever.[/quote]