Remember the Pittsburgh Zoo example of retarded parenting?

Curmudgeon wrote: This whole thing is so much like the woman who ran into the fountain while texting and then tried to sue the mall that it's just not funny. But what will happen is the zoo's insurance company will pay some blood money to make her go away and the insurance company will then tell other zoos they have to make their exhibits idiot proof or they won't insure them. And the segment of the population which tries to use their brain and accepts responsibility for their own actions will have to deal with yet another layer of stupidity insulation. Somebody mentioned putting kids in the dryer. Easy with that chainsaw there, bud. Things like this are due to idiots using their screwups like a lottery ticket. I get a little sick of it.

they just need to put us all in little pods when we are born and let the robots take care of us

As a parent, I feel for them. Losing a child that way would be mind bogglingly painful. I can't even begin to try to comprehend what they must have gone through and must still be experiencing.

That still does not make it the zoo's fault. It's also not a basis for a lawsuit.

I can't even

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10076336/Grandmother-wont-make-Double-Gloucester-for-cheese-rolling-event-after-heavy-handed-threats-from-police.html

This is the kind of crap that's on the slippery slope of where personal responsibility ends.

Curmudgeon wrote: I can't even http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/10076336/Grandmother-wont-make-Double-Gloucester-for-cheese-rolling-event-after-heavy-handed-threats-from-police.html This is the kind of crap that's on the slippery slope of where personal responsibility ends.

When you outlaw cheese, you destroy the macaroni industry!

cutter67 wrote: This does not make her a bad parent or that she did not care about her child

I could not disagree with you any more than I do. Putting the kid up there and then losing control of him does make her a bad parent. I say this as the father of two children and the grandfather of two.

EDIT: inflammatory post has been voluntarily removed

People have lapses of judgment all the time for various reasons, in Chucktown a few years back a kid in a child seat fell off the top of his mother's car in a parking lot. It seems that she had had no sleep for 36 hours and was just out of it. Things like that can happen and it doesn't necessarily make someone a bad parent, just human like the rest of us.

The difference is she's trying to blame someone else for her lapse of judgment. That is dead wrong. That woman whose kid fell off the roof? Should she have sued the child seat manufacturer, the car manufacturer or the store? Nope. And in this case the woman shouldn't sue the zoo either.

Curmudgeon wrote: People have lapses of judgment all the time for various reasons, in Chucktown a few years back a kid in a child seat fell off the top of his mother's car in a parking lot. It seems that she had had no sleep for 36 hours and was just out of it. Things like that can happen and it doesn't necessarily make someone a bad parent, just human like the rest of us. The difference is she's trying to blame someone else for her lapse of judgment. That is dead wrong. That woman whose kid fell off the roof? Should she have sued the child seat manufacturer, the car manufacturer or the store? Nope. And in this case the woman shouldn't sue the zoo either.

+1. Everyone makes mistakes. I do all the time. Silly things. The difference is I accept responsibility for my actions when I do. I don't get my child killed because of a poor judgement then blame it on someone else.

spitfirebill wrote:

cutter67 wrote: This does not make her a bad parent or that she did not care about her child

I could not disagree with you any more than I do. Putting the kid up there and then losing control of him does make her a bad parent. I say this as the father of two children and the grandfather of two.

i have really been thinking about this a lot. you know my dad was one of the worst parents he use to pile us kids in to the back of the pick up bed and run down the highway at 60 mph. he use to beat us boys with the belt...when mom said wait till your father gets home we new we would see the belt. at age 6 and 7 driving tractors thru the fields at grandmas farm. then theres me with my son strapping him in a go cart at age 2 and half or when he broke his leg at 4 and half racing motorcross. rock climbing at mconells mills when he was 6.....i would pick him up to get a better view of a lot of things. i have picture of picking him up so he could see over the railing of the kinzua bridge and when my friends were bungee jumping off the the New River Gorge bridge he wanted to look down from the platform and we held him up there to look down. so i guess pretty much everyone i know is a bad parent we are just lucky that we didnt drop our kid or bounce them out of the bed of a pick-up or get them killed riding the motorcycle or go cart into a tree..........now a lot of you will say putting them in go carts and motorcycles is not the same to me it is you are putting the child in danger of being killed and that is the same

So who did you try to sue? How about your Dad?

BTW... is it so friggin hard for people to actually TRY to make complete sentences that are decipherable? Or using a capital letter or punctuation here or there?

Bobzilla wrote: BTW... is it so friggin hard for people to actually TRY to make complete sentences that are decipherable? Or using a capital letter or punctuation here or there?

you forgot the friggin' apostrophe in the incomplete fragment above

try should not be capitalized and i'm not even sure what the ellipse is doing after the acronym

so maybe it is hard

Smart ass. Walls of text that ramble with no paragraph breaks, or capital letters and sparse punctuation make reading it difficult and painful.

My dad had me on a minibike at age 5, then put my brother and I in a thing called a King Midget a year or so later and I was driving a tractor by age 8. I rode in the back of many a pickup truck. He taught me to shoot when I was around 8 or so, I was shooting his 30.06 by the time I was ten. He and I both knew these things involved risk, he told me up front I could get hurt and I did them because I wanted to, not because he forced me to. Doing things like that with him are some of the best memories of my childhood.

But I just don't think that if anything had gone wrong that he would have tried to blame someone else and sue them. In fact, he taught me about taking the blame for my own screwups this way: one year for the 4th he bought us some fireworks. Small stuff, bottle rockets and firecrackers. I was stupid enough to hold a firecracker in my left hand till it went off, damn it hurt and I hollerd about it. He said 'well whose fault was it that you got hurt?' and I said it was his for buying me the things. I got straightened out REAL quick; it was MY decision to hold the thing in my hand and I better take the blame for my dumb decision.

It seems that esponsibility for our own actions is no longer an admirable human trait; it's expected that we make a wad of cash for doing something stupid. The world is supposed to make sure we never get a boo boo or have to pay for something we screw up on our own.

I believe the thread can now be closed?

Look at this this way. The purpose of the Lawsuit will be to determine if there is any fault on the Zoo's behalf. I'm not saying there is I have simply been painting the picture of how it could be that way.

I don't think anyone would disagree that the family of the child is due restitution if they where wronged. This is what the suit will determine. restitution in this case will only take the form of $$ that's just how it works.

I personally am a proponent of personal responsibility for EVERYONE. Both citizens and corporate citizens. In my opinion all people engaging in our socitey have the reponsibility to take the measures required to ensure there actions do not negatively affect other people. Simply because the Woman was being irresponsible does not remove the responsibilty that the zoo has to maintain a safe viewing area for their visitors. Again the lawsuit will resolve this. The way some of you are talking you feel that if the Zoo was being purposfully irresponsibly and failing to maintain safe animal/people barriers and someone was injured it would simply be a case of injury occurs In Cage persons fault/out of cage possibly persons fault.

I 100% garantee that people beating the drum of personal responsibility would not take the "High" road if the results of their irresponsibility where severe enough. Workmans comp injuries, repair of vehicles in traffic accidents while you were breaking the laws, theft due to failure to secure an item, being struck by a car crossing a street, having your house flood due to living in flood plain are some of many ways I'm confident you would seek some form of financial assistance. You might not sue but your not going to take it on the chin. What would you due if you started a fire in your fireplace and your house burnt down? If you're out riding your Motorcycle offroad and you hit a tree do you pay all that medical expense out of pocket? If you do hats off to you your more dedicated to personal responsibilty that most.

nocones wrote: What would you due if you started a fire in your fireplace and your house burnt down? If you're out riding your Motorcycle offroad and you hit a tree do you pay all that medical expense out of pocket? If you do hats off to you your more dedicated to personal responsibilty that most.

That's called insurance. You PAY someone to "insure" you for your stupidity. What a terrible argument

I have to agree. Those are absolutely horrible arguments, some of which you're just 100% wrong about (flood zone homes [dumbass], accidents while being reckless [you should know better], leaving stuff out/unlocked [your own fault] just to name a few).

A more appropriate comparison is you are out riding your motorcycle off road and hit a tree and you don't have insurance. Being responsible would be to make sure you have coverage for accidents. Irresponsible is not having insurance and expecting someone else to pay the bills. I swear some people have no idea how insurance works.

But please, continue to tell me what I think. It's always interesting to find out what I truly think from someone else.

In response to Hitemp guy:

Not really because your carrying insurance because you do not want to bear full responsibility for the results of your actions. You don't want to be on the hook for 250k if your house is a total loss due to your stupidity so you pay someone $400 a year to take that loss/responsibility for you.

I suppose a recent argument can be made that carrying proper insurance is responsible. So much of it is required by law that I would imagine it is difficult to determine the real consumer drivers for having insurance. I'm going to guess we cannot have a reasonable conversation about that though.

It would seem a decent example of this is full coverage on paid off cars. How many people take out full coverage vs. Not? Full coverage generally only covers your mistakes (and theft).

I only carry full coverage on cars with a loan because I have to. I don't even carry comprehensive on the old E36 M3. No point. I fix it myself or deal with it (like the hugenormous amount of hail damage on the wife's 221k+mile accent). The only time I've ever had to deal with insurance is when other people have hit me (twice) while I was sitting still (Backed into, slid into my side door while stopped in traffic).

Health insurance is a different story than property insurance. You WILL get sick by something you had no control over or input on. That is why you have health insurance. Getting Cancer, or having a perforated colon (wife) due to genetics is not something you can really "take responsibility for". Most property insurance is either required by law (auto) or required by lenders (mortgage/auto) so we don't really have a choice on that now do we?

so yes, your arguments are not only off the wall, but inaccurate.

In response to Bob's first post posted while I typed Hitemp guys response. Bob's post prior to this was posted while I typed this one..

So Bob are you calling me a dumbass and saying I have no idea how insurance works? I just want to be clear on your positions. I'm trying to have a reasonable and respectful discussion about something. I thought GRM was a place where even on the internet that was still possible however It becoming obvious that is no longer the environment here.

I realize the tone that can be read into my 100% guarantee statement is probably more agressive than I intended. I was going to edit it but thought I would own it and let it ride.

Please explain what you mean by your response to flood zone Homes and accidents while being reckless? If you buy a home in a floodplain I don't want to assume anything out of your thorough response.

nocones wrote: Look at this this way. The purpose of the Lawsuit will be to determine if there is any fault on the Zoo's behalf. This is what the suit will determine.

I am glad you are so confident in this. I do not share that confidence.

I 100% garantee that people beating the drum of personal responsibility would not take the "High" road if the results of their irresponsibility where severe enough. Workmans comp injuries, repair of vehicles in traffic accidents while you were breaking the laws, theft due to failure to secure an item, being struck by a car crossing a street, having your house flood due to living in flood plain are some of many ways I'm confident you would seek some form of financial assistance. You might not sue but your not going to take it on the chin. What would you due if you started a fire in your fireplace and your house burnt down? If you're out riding your Motorcycle offroad and you hit a tree do you pay all that medical expense out of pocket? If you do hats off to you your more dedicated to personal responsibilty that most.

UMMMMM, those things are all what I pay my insurance company for. They have nothing whatsoever with suing someone else to recover damages for something I* did. I pay a buttload of insurance premiums every year to cover my ass, whether I screw up, someone else does, or it is a simple act of chance.

For your analogy to make any sense whatsoever, I would have to break myself in an offroading accident and then sue the owner of the tree I hit.

In reply to nocones:

Bob is just actively trying to get the thread locked, its even getting on my nerves.....

Bobzilla wrote: I only carry full coverage on cars with a loan because I have to. I don't even carry comprehensive on the old E36 M3. No point. I fix it myself or deal with it (like the hugenormous amount of hail damage on the wife's 221k+mile accent). The only time I've ever had to deal with insurance is when other people have hit me (twice) while I was sitting still (Backed into, slid into my side door while stopped in traffic).

So here I would agree you are taking full responsibility for your mistakes with cars. If someone else is at fault they will pay. I still wonder what you or most people in your situation would do if there was an at fault accident where you where doing something "irresponsible". Would you turn down the money taking responsibilty for your irresponsibility?

Bobzilla wrote: Health insurance is a different story than property insurance. You WILL get sick by something you had no control over or input on. That is why you have health insurance. Getting Cancer, or having a perforated colon (wife) due to genetics is not something you can really "take responsibility for".

I agree completely that this is the reason most if not all people have health insurance. There are to many things out of your control that can cost you serious money to not have it. What my question or point was would you then use that health insurance if you injure yourself? Obviously it's there for you to use but do you choose to have the consequences of your actions paid for by your insurance provider or do you take responsibility and pay it out of pocket?

Bobzilla wrote: Most property insurance is either required by law (auto) or required by lenders (mortgage/auto) so we don't really have a choice on that now do we?

I do have the choice but I 100% carry property insurance. I'm not willing to take responsibility for a loss of my home when protecting it costs $400 a year.

Can we go home when it gets locked or do I have to stay over?