America--Where You're Responsible For Other People's Mistakes

Here's something that made me take time from my daily routine of going to work, playing bad poker, and going to bed to make a blog entry. St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock a month ago killed himself when he drove drunk into a tow truck assisting another car on the side of the road Hancock was trying to drive on. Last week it was reported that Hancock's father is suing everyone involved with the crash, including the restaurant where Hancock bought the drinks that impaired him, the tow truck company, the driver of the tow truck helping this other car, and, naturally, the driver of the other car that had been spun out long before Hancock approached the scene and therefore could not possibly have been set up to distract Hancock and make him kill himself. I don't even have the words to describe how disgusted I was when I heard about this lawsuit. In what world does this guy's father live where his grown son can't be held responsible for purchasing the drinks that got him drunk and crashing his car while in this impaired state? How the hell is this the bar's fault, or the tow truck driver's fault, or the fault of the poor guy that was wrecked through no fault of his own before Hancock got out on the damn road? Can you imagine going through your day and living your life when all of a sudden you are in a car accident, getting that taken care of by a helpful tow truck guy when his truck gets rear-ended by some drunken fool, and later you get a suit delivered to your door by the fool's dad faulting you for his son's actions? What would you do in that circumstance? Well, my bad temper is legendary, as you already know if you have read my previous posts, but my first reaction is to find this Hancock's father and end him. If I didn't, then I'd have to deal with the court appearance time and the lawyer's fees to defend myself against this suit which exists only because the dad wants some cash, and I couldn't handle the thought of allowing him to put me through that. This kind of shit has to stop somewhere. People with money can bully and shove around people with no money simply because they can afford to, and it's an atrocity. Of course, if you take cues from the elected leaders of our country, shoving around those who can't defend themselves is the American way, so this suit is horrifying but not surprising, and it's representative of the times. It seems that people see it as their God-given right not just to get shit-faced fucked-up, but to also get behind the wheel and take a chance that they can make it home without murdering innocent bystanders or committing suicide. And when the California courts rule that Paris Hilton should be put behind bars because she continued to drive despite previous lapses in judgment resulting in her license being suspended, petitions pop up to save her from taking responsibility for her actions. (Full disclosure--there's also a petition to make her serve her time.) I continue to be stunned by the hypocrisy that says certain mind-altering drugs are horrible and should result in mandatory jail time, but others are fine. When faced with that gap in logic, it's no surprise that seemingly no one wants to take responsibility for themselves. Why should they?