I still completely disagree with the McDonalds case, I don't see how we can hold them responsible in any way shape or form. If they had given her a cup that exploded when she started to take a turn and it caused her to have said accident, maybe there is an argument. She still is the sole person responsible for her pain, no other person's actions save removing the coffee from her would have stopped it. A label warning her of the danger of hot coffee would certainly not have kept the fluid inside the cup and off her lap. It's not a gut-reaction here, it's a common sense answer. They aren't one in the same - the knee jerk is the reaction to the headline, the failure to obtain information, common sense is knowing to find out all you can, and then making a decision case by case knowing the spirit of the law. Did McDonalds intentionally make their cups less structurally sound in an effort to cut costs, can we prove this, and does this make them liable? We have to be intelligent thinking people, I'm not in any way suggesting this is likely to happen.
The videogame version of this goes - Kids who killed people played video games. People who commit crimes play video games! People who play video games are criminals!
It's all knee jerk - not common sense. I have never and will never advocate that type of reaction / thinking, I suggest instead that we should have judges who go "Lady - you spilled your coffee on yourself, it sucks, but I'm sorry thats not McDonalds fault." It's completely biased, doesn't work in our system, but Hey, I wasn't trying to say it did.
You make an interesting point, and my disinterest in having every case spelled out in law is why I don't care for the semantic argument. Whatever people decide to call these things still sounds irrelevant to me, define them as detailed as we can in the actual law and then update as needed.
If someone breaks into your home and steals a painting that they thought was valuable, but was in fact the only remaining thing that you had left of your deceased child, the pain and hurt is much more than if they'd stolen an ordinary painting. I don't suggest that the criminal is somehow deserving of a bigger punishment unless they knew it's value to you. If we decide to punish someone for making unwanted advances against other people online, then we should and could do that, in many ways it's easier to prove. But let's not get caught up in whether or not it is as bad as rape or unwanted advances in "real life". It becomes kind of irrelevant to me because last I checked we weren't making punishments fit the crimes anyway- at least, not in balance with other crimes. The people in charge certainly aren't saying "Now wait a minute, telling a child she's being fined 4 million dollars for stealing music seems a little absurd"
The videogame version of this goes - Kids who killed people played video games. People who commit crimes play video games! People who play video games are criminals!
It's all knee jerk - not common sense. I have never and will never advocate that type of reaction / thinking, I suggest instead that we should have judges who go "Lady - you spilled your coffee on yourself, it sucks, but I'm sorry thats not McDonalds fault." It's completely biased, doesn't work in our system, but Hey, I wasn't trying to say it did.
You make an interesting point, and my disinterest in having every case spelled out in law is why I don't care for the semantic argument. Whatever people decide to call these things still sounds irrelevant to me, define them as detailed as we can in the actual law and then update as needed.
If someone breaks into your home and steals a painting that they thought was valuable, but was in fact the only remaining thing that you had left of your deceased child, the pain and hurt is much more than if they'd stolen an ordinary painting. I don't suggest that the criminal is somehow deserving of a bigger punishment unless they knew it's value to you. If we decide to punish someone for making unwanted advances against other people online, then we should and could do that, in many ways it's easier to prove. But let's not get caught up in whether or not it is as bad as rape or unwanted advances in "real life". It becomes kind of irrelevant to me because last I checked we weren't making punishments fit the crimes anyway- at least, not in balance with other crimes. The people in charge certainly aren't saying "Now wait a minute, telling a child she's being fined 4 million dollars for stealing music seems a little absurd"