Personal Responsibility

18 December 2002

This will probably be a recurring theme: personal responsibility.  Or the lack thereof.

First of all, my condolences to the family of the moron who killed himself.

The news item above is a prime example, I'm afraid.  Here's a 15-year-old kid who decided to jump on the hood of a moving vehicle.  And then, the 17-year-old kid driving slams on the brakes.  The kid flies off and then gets run over.  Dead bang.

There is no such stunt in Jackass.  Nothing like it.

Nowhere in the news item does anyone say anything about either (or both) kids being stupid, their parents being stupid, etc.

Isn't this just a perfect example of Darwinism?  Sounds to me like the stupid are being weeded out of the race.  The dead kid is, well, dead.  I imagine that the kid who was driving will (or should) go to prison, which should remove him from the gene pool for a while.  Then again, the driver will probably get off because his lawyer will blame a movie that his stupidity has nothing at all to do with.

And, most importantly, what happened to personal responsibility?

Even if this was a stunt in the movie, the movie has disclaimers on it telling people not to be stupid and try the things that are in the movie.  But there was no stunt like this in the movie.  (Additionally, a while back some kid set himself on fire, which wasn't in the movie, and they tried to blame the movie for that, too.)  So, I guess if I do something stupid I'm allowed to sue MTV because they made a movie about people doing stupid things and that may have inspired me?

I'm just waiting for the lawyers to get involved with this one.  They will:

• Sue MTV
• Sue the truck manufacturer because they didn't put a warning on the hood that says, "Don't be a moron and jump on this car while it's moving."
• Sue the company that makes the paint for the truck manufacturer because it's not sticky enough to hold someone onto the hood that they shouldn't be on.
• Sue the truck manufacturer again for not putting handles on the hood that they shouldn't be on.
• Sue Reuters for emotional hardship for publishing the name of the morons.

But whatever they do, I can almost guarantee that the parents, the community, and the friends will not take responsibility for their actions.  It seems that such is un-American.

Personally, I blame the lawyers as they make everyone think they can get rich by suing someone.  And the lawyers need work, so they're more than willing to ambulance chase and sue someone.