Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Loose the Swarm of Lawsuits; The Times can Adapt or Die

Many people decry the cost to society of the legal profession. I must admit that I have often been one of them, but I have another case where the very potential that the legal profession uses to legitimize their actions can be used to protect Western Civilization itself.

If some lawyers were to create a template for successful civil lawsuits for terror losses and fatalities, those lawyers might be situated to be lead on any number (or possibly a series of class actions) of lawsuits against terror enabling media and might well leave those media violating operational security on terrorist finding/catching/tracking operations civilly liable most of the terrorist activity in the entire world as long as the standards or template is satisfied.

I remembered the anti-gun and anti-tobacco lawsuits and how low the standards of proof seemed to be. The premise that the production activity was legal made absolutely no difference as to the ability to successfully sue a manufacturer (or in this case possibly a publisher).The fact that the faulted activity made the damage happen, or more probable to happen, or just more likely to happen, was enough to have anecdotal stories (at least it seemed to me) carry the case. How does this compare to a conditional maybe as in this case; the terrorist activity is just less likely to be caught by elements of various LEOs actively looking to prevent such activity? This terrorist capture /mission prevention probability reduction occurs as long as they do not use certain now revealed factors for communications, intelligence, and moving the funds necessary to carry out the terrorist missions.

Sometimes the threat of lawsuits discourages dangerous and unsafe, even if legal, behavior and activities. I had an electrician over at my grandparent’s place who happened to complain about how much the cost of a ladder was for tort insurance. I reached around the corner to grab my grandfather’s similar 6’ ladder made in the late 50s (it is only used to decorate the interior Christmas tree for sentimental reasons) and showed him the same weight rating as the aluminum and fiberglass ladder he had brought in and asked him if he thought that this preLawsuit frenzy ladder was just as good as his postLawsuit frenzy ladder, just sold at a third the price. He got a funny look on his face and dropped the issue.

Even more frequently than it stops unsafe acts, the threat of a lawsuit presses for going beyond the legal minimum in areas that might incur liability, these range from changing to sand under children’s playground equipment to mostly eliminating go-cart tracks. I believe that the American public, or even the entire nonMuslim world (and most of the Muslim one) desperately needs such circumspection from our media sources.

If the validity of a lawsuit swarm will change that behavior to one not supporting a nihlist culture desperately wanting to destroy Western Civilization and regress the world back to the time of Mohammed, then we all win. I recalled, with some satisfaction I must admit, how different the OJ the civil trial went compared to criminal trial, and especially how different the verdict was. I believe that the common American Myth about lawyers could be put to good use if the threat of a swarm of lawsuits using the actions of various media sources as a basis for the suit caused changes in that media behavior. The media actions do hurt national security and also cripple the operational security needed to gain co-operation from foreign governments.

If the media behavior did not change, and I do not care if it is journalistic sloppyness, exaltation of nonwestern multiculturism, Bush Derangement Syndrome, or active collusion with stark evil, then as the judgments piled up there will be a new ownership at those media sources. Either the new owners would change things or the lawsuit/judgment cycle would repeat until it did. And that can’t start too soon for me.