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Victimizationing
As a regular reader of LewRockwell.com I will frequently find articles that are beyond the usual exceptional quality of writing there and will email the writer with thanks or comments for working my brain – or my smile. Replies are inevitable and polite, often involving further though or humor. Such was the case with my short note to Brad Edmonds in response to his recent "Poor Fat People" http://www.lewrockwell.com/edmonds/edmonds129.html commentary. Although not actually disagreeing with his points, being myself a "Person of Substance" I felt obligated to point out that, for example, his own chili recipe published sometime earlier made it unlikely that I would be joining the ranks of the depressingly thin anytime soon. He replied, not unkindly, that there was "no victimizationing allowed amongst LRC readers." "Victimizationing." This is a word that both Mr. Webster and Mr. Gates' spellchecker were thoroughly unfamiliar with. Nevertheless, English is nothing if not a flexible language and I think that this particular neologism decidedly should be allowed entry into the mainstream of language, as it describes perfectly the situation we find ourselves in nowadays. In a perverse twist of Americans' cheering for the underdog, it's now helplessness that is rewarded and catered to, rather than ability. Courts encourage victimizationing, as seen in a typical personal injury lawsuit. Presume, even, that it's one that's reasonably meritorious, that is to say that the plaintiff is not a Darwin Award candidate who put his fingers under a lawnmower or urinated on a power line or hopped in a zoo cage with a large carnivore. The plaintiff has some bent, broken, and distorted body parts and I don't think that anyone would dispute that he's entitled to the cost of the repairs he'll need for those. But a plaintiff in a personal injury suit will also typically have the infamous "pain and suffering," and here is where victimizationing comes into play. It only makes sense that if you're going to be compensated for something, that you want to be seen as having as much of it as possible. There is simply no incentive for a trial attorney, particularly in contingency cases where his fee is a portion of the recovery, to tell a plaintiff to "quit whining and suck it up." Likewise, you don't take a trial like that down to someplace like southern Oregon where you'll have to convince a jury of ex-loggers who are missing various body parts of their own how terribly traumatized and agonized the plaintiff is by his broken wrist and bruised shoulder. The legislative and executive branches of the Nanny State encourage victimizationing as well. Victimizationing increases the importance of the State by convincing people that they are helpless against the forces of other men and nature, and that only the kind and benevolent embrace of Leviathan can keep them from harm. These "protections" only serve to further weaken the "victims," thus providing the State with an increasing population of people in need of further protection, all at an ever-growing cost in cash and freedom. Jobs, schools, housing, business, all become subject to State control in order to keep feelings from being hurt and choices from having consequences. Because of the rewards provided by courts, legislatures, and executives, the natural result of victimizationing is a race to the bottom. Like the "pain and suffering" plaintiff, it's the weakest that will get the greatest "protections," rather than the strongest. And a society built around weakness, like the proverbial house built on sand, can only end up caving in on itself – especially if many of its members are Those of Girth.
January 23, 2003 Thomas Creasing [send him mail] is an attorney living in the wilds of Eastern Oregon. Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com
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