| Rights. What does the word really mean anymore? It used to mean something but I am not so sure today. Sure people still go on about their rights, but usually only when they feel they have been violated. People need to think more about accountability and less about what they feel they are �owed� by society. So what does the word right mean? According to Webster�s, it means in this context to receive proper or natural position; to be lawful, truthful, in accordance with justice. However in this world of lawyers and laziness no one wants to do what is right only what is easiest for them. Everyone sees the injustice of these acts but no one thinks they can make difference. Which unfortunately is true, the common man can NOT make a difference by himself in the real world. You need money or millions of backers. This is not how the rights of the individual are suppose to work. However, the rights of the individual shouldn�t be able to over take the right of the masses. And I have polled the news, some present some not so present for examples. First I will start off with the tamest of these issues I have found, the misuse of the personal injury case. Everyone seems to think that they are owed something for merely breathing. This just in from the action news bench � you aren�t. Take for example the nimrod years ago that sued McDonald�s for spilling coffee on herself. The employees of McDonald�s didn�t spill it on here through the drive thru window. She dropped it on herself, like an idiot, and wanted someone else to blame. She cashed in. What kind of dumbass on the jury would vote in favor of such a stupid trumped up lawsuit? Why do people just need something for nothing? Why does the government or big business need to take care of those who are too lazy to take care of themselves? There isn�t a good reason for this. And yet it still continues. The sporting world is filled with such lunacy. Three good examples come to mind. First, Atlanta pitcher John Rocker showed he wasn�t the most tactful person in the world. Did he make a mistake? I suppose. Suspensions, ridicule, isolation, and fan�s increased hatred ensued. However, what upset me is that when Rocker confronted the SI (Sports Illustrated) hack that wrote the article. The writer got all pissed. �How dare Rocker think I am accountable for what I write,� was his attitude. Once again this just in, you ARE accountable for what you write. You are NOT better than anybody else in his or her profession. You need to understand you could have ruined a man�s livelihood and he is just supposed to smile and thank you? Think again. Once again, dumbass. Do people get upset when referees make bad calls? Do people get upset when car wash people scratch the cars they wash? Yes, they do. You are accountable. If I owned the Braves organization, I would have banned you from the ballpark for life for your coward's ways and stupid actions. Write your article, which was based on typical male locker room stupidity in the first place. Now there�s a good basic for a Pulitzer Prize winning article. What�s wrong was Michael Jordan unable to answer your question of how do you feel to be retired for the 1 billionth time? Tip to SI fire this creep. How do you like someone calling for your head in an article? Second, Casey Martin vs. the PGA. Casey Martin is a golfer who has a legitimate medical condition, which limits the amount he can walk. I agree this is a valid claim and not a trumped up excuse. However, the PGA has rules. When you play the events in the PGA you walk the course. End of story. You walk the course. I�m sorry Casey but this is how it has always been and how it should remain. You are NOT special. If you want to be treated like everybody else, walk the course. If you physically can�t do this, don�t play. He claims riding in a golf cart will not give him and unfair advantage. I beg to differ. Walking when you play golf and riding in a cart are totally different. I play golf, I have done both, I know. You have no case using this as an argument. Ask Monty to look behind door number 2 instead. This is just the most covered instance of this. In little leagues around the nation, parents are threatening to sue the city league to force them to let their kids play. Normally I am all for this as I am a big baseball nut. However a kid using a walker shouldn�t be allowed to play with normally abled children. Should the �differently abled�, for all you PC fans out there, should be able to play that. Like the have entire leagues for wheelchair basketball, the special Olympics, and much more. Why do you need to impose your ignorance on others? Let me break it down for those parents who don�t know. A big part of sports is the team unison. The �gelling� if you will. Now if you sue to get your kid on the team you will not be satisfied to see them on the bench. Ever. Now as a good little league coach you need to play everybody. Which means people need to take turns, remember kindergarten? Your kid may need to sit to allow another to play. This may happen for an entire game. Now, do you want every other player on that team, your child�s peers, to hate him or her because you are too pushy? It will happen. Children resent that sort of treatment and will pick on your kids more than they normally would have. Thanks for the emotional scar mom, may I have another? There is a time and a place for everyone. Find your niche, quit imposing on others. Finally in the world of sports. Just recently a woman, supposedly, sued Duke University and won 2 million dollars for not letting her be on the men�s football team as a place-kicker. Now I am all for women�s sports. I think it helps them build character like it does in men. However, and this goes back to the above paragraph, why do you need to sue to get your way? What really annoys me about this case is that this just happened, in October of 2000. She graduated in 1998. Did you forget this horrible injustice for those 2 years? Did it just slip your mind? Did the pain of the sudden remembrance really warrant 2 million dollars? Will you ever be invited back to an alumni meeting? All good questions. Lucky for me but I played football as well. I once scored four touchdowns in one game for Polk High but I digress. Kickers need to do certain things. The need to kick the extra points and field goals. They need to kick off and they need to be able to tackle, in the pitiful way they do, on covering those kickoffs. Now she claimed to be able to kick a 35-yard field goal for her high school team. That is ok for high school. Not many people in high school can kick that far, our high school kicker couldn�t. However she couldn�t kick off or tackle. In college they kick 40 to 50 yard field goals not 35 yarders. Her high school coach testified for her saying, � She didn�t need to kick off for us.� Well that�s good for your team, but how many kickers does Duke need to have on their roster? Most schools have 1 or 2 who can do all of the jobs of a kicker not just kick 35 yards. To put her and her partial ability on the team they would have to cut another player. Someone who could play his or her position in its entirety. Would you waste a roster spot on a quarterback who could only throw 20 yards, to the left, on a clear day? No this is as dumb as it sounds. Why sign a kicker who can only perform about 1/3 or � of her required duties? Would you vote for a president who showed up for work in January, February, and March and took the rest of the year off? No you don�t give a person a job they aren�t qualified for, period. Thanks to her lawyers now she is set for a few years until she sues some guy for not marrying her. A little side note. How many scholarships do you think her frivolous lawsuit just wiped out? How many people will not be able to go to Duke because she wasted the money available? More than needed I am sure. I have one thing to say to her, girl � grow up. You are not daddy�s little princess anymore, just you lawyer�s gravy train whore. I hope he bought you dinner first. I hope your need for attention was sated. And honey, no one believed you when you said you didn�t do it for the money. No one. As you can see injustice is rampant these days. People feel they have the right to anything they want. No one else matters just yourself. What ever happened to chivalry? What ever happened to love thy neighbor? In the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, you know one of those old papers we base our way of life off of; it says we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit, pursuit of happiness, the last time I looked in the dictionary didn�t mean the right to happiness. But maybe I am just not a part of the new America. If this is how life is going to be maybe we need to take the part in the Constitution seriously where it says government for the people seriously. Maybe another revolution is needed to get rid of all of these whiners. In no other country is this allowed. You know I have an idea; I will call my congressman and sue him so he will change the Declaration of Independence to read not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but life, liberty and the lawsuit for happiness. |