Angry Dentist’s Thoughts of the Day: Personal Responsibility Edition- Frats, Pirates, Aluminum Bats and Water Intoxication

All of today’s thoughts include a common theme: personal responsibility.  Or, in this case, the lack of it.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where no one wants to accept personal responsibility; it is always someone else’s fault when misfortune rains down on an individual.  Its sad and it makes me sick, but this is what the citizens of this world, and more specifically, of this country, have devolved into. 

A bunch of finger pointers.  Here are a couple of  quick cases:

• Deaths at the Frat House- I don;t like fraternity.  Never have, never will.  Never liked the idea of buying friends.  Never liked the idea of  hazing, which still goes on despite its illegal nature.  Never liked the fact that over 90% of college rapes occur at frat houses.  Sure I did my share of rushing during my freshman year.  Got to see lesbian strippers.  Twice.  Got my party on.  It was fun, for a week.  But I never wanted to walk around campus with three Greek letter stamped on my shirt.  The idea always made me feel dirty.  But I will side with the Greeks on on thing: when someone dies at a frat party, or after getting wasted at a frat party, the fraternity should not be held responsible.  Just like when someone dies at, or after leaving, a house party.  I understand the anguish a parent goes through when the word comes that their perfect little Johnny got drunk at a party and fell from a balcony.  Or died of acute alcohol poisoning.  Or got hit by a car.  I understand the instinctive nature to lash out, to blame someone.  But all too often, these mourning parents refuse to accept that there is really only one person at fault: their dead child.  This may sound inhuman, but it is the truth.  Even in cases when it is an illegal hazing incident that leads to death, well guess what, not doing it is always an option.  The news over the past few years is littered with lawsuits against schools and fraternities for wrongful death, and it is bullshit.  The school is supposed to stop underage drinking off campus?  Fraternity parties are supposed to be dry?  Bullshit.  If 21 is the drinking age, at least 50-75% of people at a frat party are drinking illegally.  And everyone, from the police to the higher-ups at the colleges know this, but there is no way to stop the drinking.  its part of college life, and to try and stop it is a futile exercise.   The most recent case is from Penn State several days ago: two students and two fraternities are being sued after some asshole got drunk (more than 2x the legal driving limit) and fell onto a concrete landing.  I remember several years ago when a local student got drunk and wandered onto campus and got crushed in a trash compactor.  His body was found in a landfill.  His parents sued everyone.  Horrible, horrible stories.  No one is denying that.  But the one undeniable truth rises above everything else: If  these idiots didn’t get drunk, they would still be alive today.  These parents have to stop looking at everyone else while searching for fault and accept the fact that their children are dead because they decided to over-drink.  Done.  End of story.  They know their kids are going to drink.  And do drugs.  That’s part of college life.  And its unfortunate when a young life is snuffed out because of alcohol consumption, but those are the risks every one of us takes when we drink to excess.  And these parents need to, pardon my French, go fuck themselves and stop looking beyond their own offspring’s poor decisions to assign blame.

• Two years ago, a woman in California decided to take part in a contest to win a $250 Wii.  The contest entailed drinking a certain amount of water over a certain period of time without peeing.  Well, she died of water intoxication.  And of course the family sued.  And, because of dumb juries, the family won upwards of 15 million dollars.  Bullshit.  Now, the DJ’s during the event weren’t the most sensitive when callers called up and alerted them to the fact that people, though rarely, do die from water intoxication.  They were crass and insensitive, but last time I checked, that wasn’t a crime.  What is the crime here?  This woman’s family being rewarded for her stupidity.  Just as the law says, ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law.  This is the 21st fucking century, and maybe, just maybe, this idiot should have gotten online before undertaking such a contest and have done some research as to whether or not their was a danger to it.  Or called a doctor.  It may be just me, but I’ve been aware for over a decade that drinking too much water can kill you.  And I would think that common sense would hint that drinking or eating too much of  ANYTHING could have adverse reactions, including death.  Ignorance is no excuse when bad things happen, especially when they are situations you walk into voluntarily.  I mean, this idiot continued to drink the goddamn water even after she began to feel nauseous and ill.  That’s generally when people with half a brain stop doing whatever they are doing.  This woman’s family should have been awarded nothing.  And the judge should have taken her 3 children aside and asked some questions to make sure they weren’t as retarded as their mother.  Harsh, I know, but where’s the personal responsibility?  Did she ask some questions before participating?  No.  She went in blindly and she paid the price for a stupid decision.

• Another recent lawsuit in Montana awarded $850,000 to grieving parents whose child was killed when a pitched ball came off of an aluminum bat, smacking him in the head.  They sued the makers of the bat, not claiming not that the bat was defective, but that there should have been a warning on the bat alerting people to the fact that balls hit by aluminum bats come back faster than balls hit by wooden bats.  There are so many thins wriong with this that I don’t know where to begin.  But here we go:  1) There is still no proof that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  In this case, a ball hit off a wooden bat would have caused the same damage. 2) A warning label on the bat alerting parents and children that aluminum bats are more dangerous than wooden bats.  Yeah that will surely make a difference.  Look, not a single state in this country has made aluminum bats illegal.  Each time a law arises, it is shot down, because, once again, there is no proof.  This lawsuit has no merit because the manufacturer did nothing wrong, and this is a case where even a warning wouldn’t have prevented the death.  Because EVERY little league operation uses metal bats.  And I bet you that these parents would have let their child play baseball even if the bats had a warning printed on them.  Why?  Because like every parent out there, they would have thought “There’s no way my son can get hurt playing baseball.  The odds of soemthign bad happening are so small.  And all of his friends are playing.”   And if they say otherwise, then they are fat fucking liars.  No sane parent prevents their child from playing a sport because of the 1 in a million chance that they could die.  if that was the case, no parent would ever let their child drive.  This whole thing is a money grab, nothing more, nothing less.  It’s a freak accident, and the results would probably have been the same if the ball had been launched from a wooden bat.  Remember a couple of years ago when a minor league third base couch was hit in the neck by a ball off of a wooden bat and died?  Its a freak accident, and guess what?  There is no one to blame.  And the fact that not a single state or organization will ban aluminum bats is proof enough that they are not innately more dangerous.  If their was indisputable proof, wooden bats would be the norm.  Done.  Freak accidents happen.  Maybe these parents should sue God next, but that makes as much sense as suing the bat manufacturer.  And if these parents really, I mean really, blamed the bats, wouldn’t they have sued the township and the little league itself for allowing the kids to use metal bats?  That would have made sense.  But guess who has the most money here?  Yep, the guys who make the bats.  Fucking juries.  The lawyers must whittle down the pool so only the most inbred morons are left.  Metal bats need labels to warn the  batter that balls may go fast when hit.  How the fuck does that help the pitcher who gets beaned.  This is as stupid as the woman who won a lawsuit after placing hot coffee in her lap.  Some things just don’t need labels, because if you are too dumb to know the obvious, well then, maybe you should be pushed out of the gene pool.

• And finally, these dumb Brits who were captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia.  Are you kidding me?  This is as irresponsible as those three hippies captured at the Iranian border.  What the fuck is wrong with people?  Who the hell says: “Hey, beautiful days for sailing in pirate infested waters, isn’t it?”   What, was the Mediterranean Sea closed for the week?  or full?  Who the fuck takes their yacht of the coast of Somalia?  The British government shouldn’t lift a  finger or pay a dime to free these idiots.  Once again, a simple case of being in a place you full well know you shouldn’t be.  Are we supposed to feel bad for this couple?  Is Britain really expected to hand over millions of tax dollars to secure the release of people who decided it would be a jolly good time to take their boat of the East coast of Africa?  Let them rot.  They brought this on themselves.  They took the risk, and now they have to live with the consequences.  Personal responsibility. 

Accidents happen in this world.  That’s life.  And all we can do as human beings is try to limit the chances that something bad can and will happen to us.  That means not getting so drunk you tumble from a window.  This means learning of the dangers that should be evident before you enroll in a contest.  This means not being in a place that you know is dangerous.  Life is unpredictable, and it is the responsibility of every individual person to put themselves in a position to limit the chances that bad things happen.  Personal responsibility.  Learn it.  Love it.  Live it. 

And to every college student who may be reading this: You reap what you sow.  When you get drunk off your ass outside of your dorm room, the chances of bas things happen shoots up exponentially.  Be safe, be smart.  Because if you end up falling five stories onto a concrete patio,  your own blood pooling around your crushed skull, dying cold and alone… if you end up in the ER on death’s door because of blood alcohol poisoning… if you wrap your car around a telephone pole while having a blood aocohol level of .16… you have no one to blame but yourself.

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