{"id":1219,"date":"2008-07-21T22:39:55","date_gmt":"2008-07-22T02:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/21\/our-litigious-society-is-getting-out-of-hand\/"},"modified":"2008-07-21T22:40:30","modified_gmt":"2008-07-22T02:40:30","slug":"our-litigious-society-is-getting-out-of-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/21\/our-litigious-society-is-getting-out-of-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Litigious Society is Getting Out of Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you read things like this, it really makes you worry:<\/p>\n

But you see, Anna is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in, the Evil Empire, world’s leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States, where she now lives, than in the once-totalitarian regime where she was born, well … it gets your attention. And when she says Americans sometimes remind her of the gray, fatalistic men and women who shuffled along under communism, unwilling to think too deeply, say too much or laugh too loudly for fear of offending the State, it is striking, to say the least.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In case you can’t tell, I’ve been reading Overlawyered<\/a> again. I stopped reading for a while because it just depressed me. But really, this needs to stop. It’s getting to the point where people are afraid to do things, just because they might get sued – and their fears are justified. If you do anything – literally, just about anything – you’re likely to get sued. And that’s just not normal!<\/p>\n

Read the full article here:<\/p>\n

Leonard Pitts: Freedom’s less-considered costs | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Opinion: Viewpoints<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Troubling stuff, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you read things like this, it really makes you worry: But you see, Anna is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in, the Evil Empire, world’s leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States, where she now lives, than in the… Continue reading Our Litigious Society is Getting Out of Hand<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[89,100],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-law","tag-opinion","entry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-jF","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3043,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2010\/04\/22\/lessons-we-still-havent-learned-from-1984\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":0},"title":"Lessons we still haven’t learned from 1984","author":"Keith Survell","date":"April 22, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking at George Orwell's novel '1984' and seeing some uncomfortable parallels to our modern world.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2008\/05\/1984-was-not-supposed-to-be-an-instruction-manual-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6385,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/05\/27\/think-of-the-innocent-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":1},"title":"Think of the Innocent Man","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"When you think of justice, don't think of the criminal - think of the innocent man.","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/02\/16\/sacred-institution-of-marriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":2},"title":"Sacred Institution of Marriage","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 16, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I think this sums up our modern society quite nicely.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1065,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/16\/on-surveillance\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":3},"title":"On Surveillance","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Surveillance is power. When\u00a0surveillance become ubiquitous, we place utmost faith and trust in those performing surveillance to use that power justly. And as we all know... power corrupts. If we wish to become a surveillance society, we must have checks and balances on surveillance, just as we do with other\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1043,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/02\/08\/the-four-boxes-used-to-defend-liberty\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":4},"title":"The Four Boxes used to Defend Liberty","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Still another great sig seen on Slashdot: There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. I hope you've been using the first two recently - I know I have.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6258,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/04\/so-much-is-wrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":1219,"position":5},"title":"So Much is Wrong","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"No matter how terrible things get, remember that wrong is wrong.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}