Warner Todd Huston
Our idiotic courts: car gets stolen, then owner's held liable for theft, also trees get 'rights'
By Warner Todd Huston
All too often it is an upside down world in our American court systems. Here we have two more stories that really argues for the word "impeachment" to get far more of a workout in our nation than it currently does. In one case, a woman whose car was stolen is held liable for the theft of her own car merely because the keys were inside and in the second, more egregious tale, several courts across the land have decided that trees have "rights" not to be cut down.
First up in our cavalcade of lunacy is the case of the stolen car in Nashville, Tennessee. As it happens a car owned by one Rubye Jarrell was stolen and in the course of the theft and the resulting police chase the thief crashed the car into that of the Newman family. The Newman's promptly sued the police department for daring to chase a thief. The penchant for people to sue police for doing their job is bad enough but even worse, the owner of the car was also charged with "negligence" because her grandson left the keys in the car "in a high crime area." This is a crime, apparently, because in this foolish court's opinion a person that leaves keys in a car is just as bad as a thief that steals a car.
This moronic decision absurdly making the victim just as blamable as an actual thief is yet one more example of our overly litigious society. Was it stupid to leave keys in a car? Sure. Should someone so stupid as to leave their keys in their car be surprised that the car gets stolen? If they are surprised they are doubly stupid. But are they liable for the thief's actions? Hardly.
This charge should have been laughed out of court. Instead both a circuit court and the Tennessee Court of Appeals agreed that the owner was liable for leaving keys in the car. This is just as stupid as courts that allow cases that charge gun makers or gun shops are liable for criminal actions committed with their products or courts that allow morons who burn themselves on hot food to get million dollar awards.
The fact is the only person responsible for the theft of the car and the car accident that harmed the Newman family is the thief that stole the car. Period. The cops are not culpable neither is the owner of the car.
It is bad enough that the courts in Tennessee have shifted a measure of blame for crime to the shoulders of the victims and the police, but the L.A. Times recently had a tale of supreme stupidity when it reported that some U.S. courts appear to be giving "rights" to trees, plants, insects and animals!
The Times reports that legal "rights" for birds, insects, animals and plants have "gained traction" among extremist environmentalist groups that want humanity prevented from thriving, claiming it is a "threat" to nature. Worse, bestowing rights on animals and inanimate objects is gaining traction in our courts, too.
"After years of fruitlessly pursuing existing environmental avenues to stop landfills, factory farming and the spreading of sewage sludge," the Times reports, "the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Chambersburg, Penn. decided to take a more extreme approach."
"It took hundreds of challenges before racial segregation was overturned as the law of the land" said Sean Hecht, the head of the Environmental Law Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.
It is an outrage to equate assuring that humans can lawfully enjoy their natural, human rights to obscenely giving a rock the rights of men! It is an insult to every African American to say that their rights are no different than that of a pig, a snake, or a leafy plant!
Our legal system has spun horribly out of control. The solution is to begin impeachment of the sort of halfwit judges that agree with these moronic decisions. These neer-do-wells need to be thrown bodily from the bench. As it is right now these extremist, nuts have no fear of the people and do not imagine themselves accountable to anyone. To bring these stargazers back to earth they need to have some fear for their jobs.
Impeachment of judges is one thing that we have never used enough in this nation. We should begin to do so to put some level of fear in them that these sort of obscene decisions will not be tolerated by a sentient people.
© Warner Todd Huston
December 18, 2010
All too often it is an upside down world in our American court systems. Here we have two more stories that really argues for the word "impeachment" to get far more of a workout in our nation than it currently does. In one case, a woman whose car was stolen is held liable for the theft of her own car merely because the keys were inside and in the second, more egregious tale, several courts across the land have decided that trees have "rights" not to be cut down.
First up in our cavalcade of lunacy is the case of the stolen car in Nashville, Tennessee. As it happens a car owned by one Rubye Jarrell was stolen and in the course of the theft and the resulting police chase the thief crashed the car into that of the Newman family. The Newman's promptly sued the police department for daring to chase a thief. The penchant for people to sue police for doing their job is bad enough but even worse, the owner of the car was also charged with "negligence" because her grandson left the keys in the car "in a high crime area." This is a crime, apparently, because in this foolish court's opinion a person that leaves keys in a car is just as bad as a thief that steals a car.
This moronic decision absurdly making the victim just as blamable as an actual thief is yet one more example of our overly litigious society. Was it stupid to leave keys in a car? Sure. Should someone so stupid as to leave their keys in their car be surprised that the car gets stolen? If they are surprised they are doubly stupid. But are they liable for the thief's actions? Hardly.
This charge should have been laughed out of court. Instead both a circuit court and the Tennessee Court of Appeals agreed that the owner was liable for leaving keys in the car. This is just as stupid as courts that allow cases that charge gun makers or gun shops are liable for criminal actions committed with their products or courts that allow morons who burn themselves on hot food to get million dollar awards.
The fact is the only person responsible for the theft of the car and the car accident that harmed the Newman family is the thief that stole the car. Period. The cops are not culpable neither is the owner of the car.
It is bad enough that the courts in Tennessee have shifted a measure of blame for crime to the shoulders of the victims and the police, but the L.A. Times recently had a tale of supreme stupidity when it reported that some U.S. courts appear to be giving "rights" to trees, plants, insects and animals!
The Times reports that legal "rights" for birds, insects, animals and plants have "gained traction" among extremist environmentalist groups that want humanity prevented from thriving, claiming it is a "threat" to nature. Worse, bestowing rights on animals and inanimate objects is gaining traction in our courts, too.
"After years of fruitlessly pursuing existing environmental avenues to stop landfills, factory farming and the spreading of sewage sludge," the Times reports, "the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Chambersburg, Penn. decided to take a more extreme approach."
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Its first rights of nature ordinance in 2006 was aimed at protecting Tamaqua Borough from spreading sewage sludge on farm land within town limits. Since then the group has helped pass similar ordinances in other parts of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Maine and Virginia. More recently, the group helped bar natural gas drilling in Pittsburgh and even worked with the government of Ecuador to include a rights of nature clause in its new constitution.
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The measure says that "natural communities and ecosystems, including, but not limited to wetlands, streams, rivers, aquifers, clouds and other water systems, possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist, flourish and naturally evolve within the City of Mount Shasta."
"It took hundreds of challenges before racial segregation was overturned as the law of the land" said Sean Hecht, the head of the Environmental Law Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.
It is an outrage to equate assuring that humans can lawfully enjoy their natural, human rights to obscenely giving a rock the rights of men! It is an insult to every African American to say that their rights are no different than that of a pig, a snake, or a leafy plant!
Our legal system has spun horribly out of control. The solution is to begin impeachment of the sort of halfwit judges that agree with these moronic decisions. These neer-do-wells need to be thrown bodily from the bench. As it is right now these extremist, nuts have no fear of the people and do not imagine themselves accountable to anyone. To bring these stargazers back to earth they need to have some fear for their jobs.
Impeachment of judges is one thing that we have never used enough in this nation. We should begin to do so to put some level of fear in them that these sort of obscene decisions will not be tolerated by a sentient people.
© Warner Todd Huston
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