For Public Consumption
Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino is making his acting debut on Broadway in the play
"Wait Until Dark." A Newsweek magazine theater critic panned both
Tarantino's performance and his impudence at learning the craft of acting on a Broadway
stage: "He's having fun at the public expense."
What's interesting - and revealing - about this statement is the idea expressed by the
phrase "public expense." As far as the reviewer is concerned, since he hates the
performance, everyone must hate it and no one would voluntarily pay to see it. Therefore,
people are coerced into paying the ticket price, slaves to Tarantino's egotistical desire
to act.
This is the watered down version of Marxism we live with today in America. There is no
free market; only coercive transactions between "big business" and the little
guy, the consumer so lovingly fretted over by the likes of Ralph Nader and his trial bar
comrades.
Once upon a time, a public expense was something on which tax dollars were spent. In
the reviewer's hands, it means that there are no private expenses, and thus no private
property; everything is in the public sphere of control.
Tort reform is one of those issues where the lines of distinction between what is
public and what is private have been blurred. In the 1998 session, the business community
finally succeeded in getting passed a comprehensive reform of the state's civil justice
system, only to have the governor veto the bill.
In his veto message, the governor justified his action by writing, "If victims do
not receive adequate compensation for their injuries by wrongdoers, Floridians overall
will pay." That would be fine if it were an accurate description of what the bill
did.
The bill attempted to address those aspects of the system that cause damages to become
dependent upon ability to pay rather than wrongdoing. Nothing in its provisions absolved
wrongdoers of their duty to pay for their wrongdoing.
If the wrongdoer has no money to pay damages, that is a horrid and unfair burden on the
victim. When horrid and unfair things happen - as they, sadly, frequently do - others step
in with solace and help. Sometimes those others are relatives, friends, church members.
Sometimes they are government employees.
The tort system seems to be the only area where liberals see a need and don't want to
fill it with a government program. In this situation, they'd rather leave the helping of
others to someone else. That someone else inevitably comes equipped with a deep pocket
that, coincidentally, can provide a cash infusion for the bottomless pocket of some member
of the trial bar.
With the goal of getting money to victims (and their lawyers), the definition of
wrongdoer must be expanded broadly enough until it catches up someone who can pay the
damages. What difference does it make if the one who's doing the paying did nothing wrong
(or only partially contributed to the wrong)?
It's all for the common good. At the public expense. And we don't really pay for all
this generosity any way. Do we?
Jon L. Shebel is president & CEO of Associated Industries of Florida and
affiliated companies.
July/August 1998 -- Florida Business Insight, 501 N. Adams St., Tallahassee,
Fla. 32302
(850)224-7173, insight@aif.com
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