Those "F"ing Trial Lawyers

[welshTerrier2]

For years now, Republicans have tried to demonize trial lawyers, class action suits, large jury verdicts and the excessive use of the courts in frivolous lawsuits ... they have argued ad nauseum about how large jury "awards" do nothing but drive up prices ... and they love to argue about how medical malpractice settlements are driving up healthcare costs. John Edwards' addition to this years Democratic ticket has made Republican whining on these issues all the more frantic ...

But isn't it just possible that a wee bit of hypocrisy lies imbedded in these whinings?

How many times have you seen Republicans kneeling at the alter of the free market? "Get government off the backs of business" they cry ... there are so many rules and regulations that business can't be profitable ... they see business as being oppressed by disclosure requirements, OSHA regulations, environmental safeguards and product safety laws ...

The entire ideology of Republicanism is to cater to the wealthy be they stockholders, CEO's or both ... if you are a worker in a corporation, a consumer of the corporation's products or live nearby one of these corporations, Republicans seek to weaken your rights and strengthen the rights of corporations ...

And one area they seek to do this in is in the area of civil litigation ... if you are injured by an unsafe work environment, if you are hurt and unable to work because of damage caused to you by an unsafe product, or if you must live the rest of your life in pain due to a doctor's negligence, Republicans view your problem as a cost to be minimized ... and they view those who would assist you by preparing your case as demons ...

What they fail to recognize is that it might drive up costs for the business that caused harm, but it will not drive up, or should not drive up, prices for that businesses' competitors ... the effect should be that if a business produces unsafe products or a doctor if repeatedly found guilty of malpractice, they should be driven out of business due to rising costs ... if Republicans seek to argue that all businesses will raise their prices if their competitor is forced to do so because of expensive lawsuits, than those corporations who raise their prices are doing nothing but exploiting the market ... this price increase is not based on increased costs ... they are doing nothing but exploiting the market and this is unconscionable ...

The ultimate hypocrisy in all of this, of course, is that eliminating your right to sue for as much as you can get is very much part of the free market ... large settlements provide a tremendous market incentive for businesses to provide safe products ... take away the market incentive to build safe products and all that remains is maximizing profits ... and should that be the case, businesses will always choose the short-term incentives ... they will not build safety into their products because they would prefer to incur the bad publicity LATER rather than incur the up-front product costs NOW ...

While not all lawsuits are legitimate and not all jury settlements are fair, the alternatives proposed by Republicans will cast a dark shadow over protecting the safety of millions of Americans ... and in the great battle we are waging between letting corporations maximize profits no matter who gets hurt and protecting the "little guy", hard working trial lawyers, especially those trial lawyers with the integrity of John Edwards, are some of the best front line soldiers in the battle to safeguard our health and well-being from those who lack a moral compass ... demonizing trial lawyers is but one evil component of the Republicans' immoral scheme to put profits before people ...

and we will not let them get away with it ...

[welshTerrier2]

1. kick

n/t = no takers ??

[LittleApple81]

2. It is only if they fight for the "little, unimportant, poor people." See

what is happening with all the white collar fat cats? Most of the trials so far have been mistrials or innocent verdicts... I wonder what they call those lawyers? I call those scum...

[welshTerrier2]

3. anti-corporate

i don't think their primary objection is the defending of poor people who have been accused of crimes ... and they certainly don't seem to object to defending wealthy people accused of crimes ...

their primary objection seems to be in civil lawsuits that seek damages against businesses ... they don't want business to have to be responsible for the harm they cause ...

"if we make business pay for the damage they do, it will just raise the price of products to everyone" ... of course, this idiocy fails to acknowledge that if we don't make businesses pay for the damage they do, they have no incentive to spend money to prevent the damage from happening in the first place ...