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So heres how it goes.
To resolve problems with the recent culture of litigation, for even the smallest of offences, and to alleviate some pressure on the currently hectic schedule of the juduciary, I propose public scheduled fights.
In circumstances where any remuneration for winning will
be small, and the main cause for the dispute is that you simply dont like the other person, you can fight him(or her).
I think that it would have several effects. First of all, hopefully people would think twice about doing something outright offensive to another person, because they can now get legally beaten up for it. Even the most battle hardened person would think twice about doing something bad, because there is no room to sneak up on someone, or grab your knife.
For people who are good at fighting, there is always the avenue of a real lawsuit, so they are not immune.
And for the real kicker, class action lawsuits can be formed in a kind of tag team match, where every single shareholder in Enron can now slug the ex-CEO personally.
Trial By Game
http://www.halfbake...a/Trial_20By_20Game
A milder variant. [bristolz, Feb 21 2002, last modified Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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How do you accomodate equity? If I'm weaker than my opponent, can I bring a bat? Hm... probably down there on the list of failed governmental practices, along with distributing swords to determine political sucession. |
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Isn't there some TV show that does this? |
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While dueling has had it's day, perhaps it's time to bring it back in a non-lethal fashion. Something in the manner of the jousts at the SCA festivals. I'd be opposed to real violence, however, as well as any form of renumeration by the loser. |
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If these fights are to be regulated - which is necessary for them to be something other than bar-room headstompings - then an institutional framework will have to be put in place. |
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We will need people whose job it is to ensure that all the rules of the fight are observed. We could call them, say, "judges". We will also need members of the public to determine who won the fight. They could be called "juries".
We will then need people to allocate the time of the judges and the juries. They could be called "clerks."
And eventually, sensible people would start employing proxies to fight for them. Perhaps we could call them "lawyers" as everyone wants to see lawyers get stomped. |
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Hang on... Oh yeah, you've just removed the eminently sensible system of man-made and man-enforced rules and replaced it with fighting. In fact, what your idea proposes is keeping the only major flaw in the legal system - the institutional framework itself. |
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And anyway, I'm a lawyer but I'm too physically weedy to ever win cases in this system. So, fishbone. |
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