Litigation: The Fast Track to the American Dream

Let's face it, the idea of the American Dream has changed. Originally it was more along the lines of someone could come here, work hard, make a good life for themselves, and anyone had the chance to become rich.

Nowadays, take out everything except the getting rich part. That's the dream. And admittedly it's not exactly a bad dream to have. But it's in the going about of acquiring that dream that people can be real fools.

This is not exaclt a "new" practice, but it always annoys me when a new instance of it shows up. I'm talking about the frivilous lawsuit. This new offender is a Texas woman and her 14 year old daughter suing Myspace for $30 million dollars because the daughter was sexually assaulted by a 19 year old man, misrepresenting his age.

OK, so maybe you're thinking I'm a bit callous to be calling this frivilous, but it is. That would be like someone suing Hersheys because their child took candy from someone they didn't know.

Their lawsuit is maintaining that Myspace should take more stringent measures to verify people's ages. I think Myspace should countersue maintaining that parents should take more stringent measures not to be dumbasses and to perhaps teach their children something I knew when I was probably 4 years old: don't take candy from strangers.

Now I realize that situations have changed since I was younger. A sketchy van driving slowly down your street is a much more obvious sign than a Myspcae profile, which can be easily doctored. But the essential teaching is the same, and is exactly that: essential. It feels to me that this lady wants to be rewarded for being a lacksidasical parent.

And that's her American Dream.