|
|
|
A Culture of Lawsuits: And What Common Good Wants to Do About It Timothy Harper
Sky, September 1, 2004 An in-depth article in the September 2004 edition of Sky (the award-winning magazine of Delta Airlines) looks at the life and motivation of CG Chair Philip K. Howard, and at Common Good's mission of restoring common sense to American law.
"Law is supposed to serve society, not the other way around," Howard said. Legal fear, he explained, "keeps people, whether everyday citizens or government leaders, from ... using common sense and doing what's right."
Howard's upbringing as the son of a small-town Presbyterian minister has, as Sky reports, "a strong influence on is current mission":
He grew up in small towns in the South, where his father was a Presbyterian minister. His father spent lots of time and his own money gathering up food donations before holidays, and young Philip went with him into the hills and hollows of Georgia and Kentucky to hand out turkeys to families whose children, including boys his own age, didn't even have shoes.
The simplicity of such deeds, and the uninhibited kindness his father demonstrated, contrast with the much more complex culture Howard sees today. "In the name of individual rights, which is something everyone believes in," he says, "we unwittingly undermined everyone's rights by in effect ceding government power to any person who wants to make a legal claim."
Common Good is founded on the principle that the victims of America's lawsuit culture are not only those who face frivolous lawsuits, but all of us who live in a society where our doctors, teachers, city councils, and others are paralyzed by a fear of "being sued over every little thing."
Visit Delta-Sky.com
| |
