In a day and age when logic seems to be the last thing on the fast food menu, a blow has finally been struck for intelligence.
The famous class-action lawsuit filed against McDonald’s for causing obesity, diabetes and other health problems was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet after he decided that the law is not responsible for saving people from themselves. “If a person knows or should know that eating copious orders of supersized McDonald’s products is unhealthy and may result in weight gain,” the judge was quoted as saying in an Associated Press article, “it is not the place of the law to protect them from their own excesses. Nobody is forced to eat at McDonald’s.”
So much has been made about how little value society places on being responsible for its own welfare, that complaining about it no longer seems radical. But that doesn’t mean the lack of common sense has gone away – warning labels still adorn almost every product a consumer can buy, from TV dinners that tell you “once microwaved, food will be hot” to coffee cups emblazoned with warnings about the temperature of the beverage. The latter warning now exists thanks to a much-talked about lawsuit filed against McDonald’s by an elderly woman who spilled coffee on herself, resulting in third-degree burns.
Sweet’s decision is far from the end of the drama. Plaintiff’s lawyer Samuel Hirsch filed similar lawsuits against Wendy’s, Burger King and KFC, which have either been dropped or put on hold because of the much-publicized McDonald’s trial. In addition, Hirsch is planning to amend and re-file the McDonald’s lawsuit, centered around the claim that the fast food chain targets high-fat, high-cholesterol food at children, which can be a “toxic kind of thing” when eaten regularly. This is, of course, true, but only a complete idiot of a parent is likely to let their children eat whatever they want, let alone McDonald’s food on any sort of regular basis. (Such complete idiots can be seen on episodes of the “Jerry Springer Show” entitled “My 4-year-old weighs 200 pounds.”)
However, what is even sillier is a quote from McDonald’s spokesman Walt Riker, who responded to Hirsch’s claim by stating, “McDonald’s food can fit into a healthy, well-balanced diet, based upon the choice and variety available on our menu.” With both sides essentially perpetuating lies that no intelligent person should believe, is it any wonder that lawsuits like this occur?
The lawsuit becomes even more surreal when one considers how essentially hypocritical the district judge’s decision was. With taxes in place against cigarettes and further taxes contemplated by lawmakers on fatty foods, who is going to argue that the law doesn’t try to protect us from our own excesses?
When our court system essentially descends into lies and hypocrisy, and when pundits and opinion writers spend half their time complaining about warning labels instead of more relevant issues, we know something is wrong with our society. The solution is simple. We need to stop using lawsuits to settle our every little difference, and start using common sense.
