-=> On 02-14-98  08:34, Robert Plett did testify and affirm <=-
-=> to Mike Angwin concerning Tobacco Settlement <=-
[...SNIP..]
 MA> Consider, for a moment, what we are talking about here. 
 MA> Government is selling our right to just compensation and
 MA> civil litigation.  Your spouse and mine, our children, if
 MA> by some chance we should die or be disabled due to the
 MA> effects of tobacco, will be foreever denied the fundamental
 MA> right of taking a tobacco company to court, despite
 MA> whatever evidence and strength of a case we may have, and
 MA> receiving just compensation. 
 RP> I have a problem with the idea of suing tobacco companies
 RP> in the first place.  Whatever happened to personal
 RP> responsibility? 
It is interesting that in nearly every tobacco case
submitted to *jury* trial, the verdict has exonerated the
tobacco companies on exactly that basis: personal
responsibility. Not only has official warning of tobacco
been available for years - it has it been almost exactly 3
DECADES since the initial Surgeon General's on tobacco -;
folk awareness of that danger has existed for well over a
century as demonstrated by the entry of the term "coffin
nails" into the language in the 1880's. 
... The highest bidder catches the most politicians.
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