Are rules and laws and the like being used unnessarily against people more often now? What is a rule or law, if you can't just use a little commons sense and reasoning? In today's world people are either in trouble or let out of trouble for technical reasons. This happens because authority figures in various forms follow their little rules or laws to the letter as it is written. I suppose one could say that if they were to let something slide, because of common sense or if they gave someone trouble, because some rule or law said something can or shouldn't be done, then it's a slippery slope. Nonononono... I beg to differ. You state the case and why you decided that even though a certain rule or law says something, that you chose to disregard written rule or law.
Rules are stuctured and are there to make things safe for people. It is there to help keep things in line, but if you choose to go by the book sometimes good people are hurt for actions they shouldn't get hurt for.
Years ago an elderly woman put a hot cup of McDonald's coffee between her legs and when she drove, it spilled onto her lap. She sued McDonald's and won. A lot of people shook their heads that day. Let me make this clear. Coffee is hot. Coffee is a hot drink. It comes out of a coffee maker that steams and steams. Have you made coffee before? What if she made her own coffee and burned her legs? Is she going to sue the maker of the person who made her coffee maker? It is in my opinion that she was sue happy. She blamed McDonald's for her mistake. She put the coffee there. She spilled it on herself. What did she expect? If I was the judge, I'd use a little common sense. Or I would just throw away the case. What exactly is the point? It is a waste of time and money. She wasted McDonald's time. She wasted her own time. And worst of all she wasted the time of the court room. She wasted the time of her lawyers. She wasted the time of McDonald's lawyers. Lawyers wasted their own time. The judge wasted his time. Okay, so the lawyers were paid and so was the judge. Maybe they went ahead and did the case to get paid. Of course then one could say that the judge could have just ruled in McDonald's favor saying that the old lady did what she did, because of lack of common sense. But no, the judge went by the book or something. I don't understand anyway, but somehow he came to the stupid conclusion that it was McDonald's fault.
This next one is a little more recent, but not very. A young man saved the life of a girl. They both had asthma and they both used the same type of drug in their inhalers. They both knew this. The girl was having an asthma attack and she didn't have hers. The boy, KNOWING she used the same thing let her use his inhaler and this saved her life. The school suspended him, because the rules state that you don't give others your own medicine. Admittedly the reasoning behind this rule is very sound. One could accidently kill someone if they took or gave the wrong medicine. So, a sound rule was used. Okay, so that I see nothing wrong with, but because there was nothing in the rules making reasonable exceptions, he was suspended. Slippery slope? Is that why they had to suspend him? To make an example? Or was it just because he read the rule out of the book and had to do accordingly? Both students took the SAME inhaler. Both KNEW this. The girl's life was in danger. The boy rescued her. And for that he is punished? What is the point of a rule, if you can't use a little common sense? So something states that one is to be punished for something even if this something saved someone?
In a way I'm sorry I had to write a very negative blog post today, but I think we need to be aware of the fact that rules and laws are being misused even more now than before. A bit of leniancy is in order. I think it's oly fair, actually not only fair, but it is right and just to start using one's head to make a judgement call. We can't just make a judgement call, because a rule or law says we have to. Where are people's heads at that we follow things to the letter just because a rule or law says so? We've lost our ability to think things through and are blindly following rules and laws. Are we so stupid that we don't know what to do in certain situations anymore? Are we afraid we'll get backlash if we don't follow things to the letter? There could be a lot of reasons, but I think it needs to be pointed out everywhere that common sense is more important than any rule or law is. And to just follow one without the other is just foolish.
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