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Summary: something's wrong here
Review: a good anaysis of the current legal system and how we're bound not to do whats best in response to the probabilty of being sued
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Summary: A book that will really make you think
Review: As an immigrant to the US (from Mexico), one of the hardest things for me to get used to was the skewed sense of freedom and entitlement that is sometimes expressed in this country. On my own I had been trying to come to grips with the ideas of extreme lawsuits, political correctness, and limits on authority. While I'm in favor of the basic ideas expressed in all these principles, I constantly get a feeling that many people don't understand the true meaning of their rights and simply abused their privileges. This book validated my beliefs, but more importantly, helped me to better understand how we have come to act this way. It also helped me express all my feelings about this subject in a simple way: Our over emphasis on our individual freedoms and (supposed) entitlements is putting in jeopardy our common good, and we are ultimately hurting ourselves. I think this book should be read by anyone who wants to be a true contributor to the common good.
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Summary: Great book
Review: Every politician, every lawyer, every judge, and especially every citizen in America should read this book. It explains clearly and concisely how bad laws and frivolous lawsuits are undermining our country. Everything has to have warning labels, everything has to be dumbed down, anything remotely dangerous (such as the teeter-totter or playground slide) has to be eliminated, and teachers aren't allowed to punish bad kids for fear of being sued. Government unions make it impossible to fire incompetent workers, and anti-discrimination laws cause the very discrimination that they are supposed to prevent. After reading this book, you will understand better why government, corporations, and society are not working as good as they should. How can they, with the guillotine of potential lawsuits hanging over our heads?
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Summary: Gets you thinking
Review: I thought this book was an easy read. Howard does his best to light a fire under you to get you thinking. People are so worried about their individual rights, common sense gets thrown out with the bath water!!! This is a good motivational book for any elected official to read. I actually read this book for an assignment, and the book opened my eyes on really how inhumane or shallow our culture is becoming.
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Summary: Gets you thinking
Review: I thought this book was an easy read. Howard does his best to light a fire under you to get you thinking. People are so worried about their individual rights, common sense gets thrown out with the bath water!!! This is a good motivational book for any elected official to read. I actually read this book for an assignment, and the book opened my eyes on really how inhumane or shallow our culture is becoming.
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Summary: False Advertising
Review: I was intrigued by the title of this book, partly because similar thoughts that are discussed there were going through my own mind. The author recaps an old debate: the balance between the freedom to do whatever you want and encroaching on others' freedoms. I don't think that the lack of a proposal for a workable solution is a problem - the idea of the book is to define the problem. Although I am very sympathetic to the reviewers who deride the author because they feel that individual rights are still not given enough of an airing I also feel that the author is touching on a problem that is endemic to our age - the unwillingness of people these days to take responsibility for their lives and the consequences of their actions - I don't want to advocate a return to the days when individuals were cogs in a machine with very few rights - what we need is a balance - very hard to achieve of course. The author only gets three stars because the topic is not a new one - but he articulates it quite well and in a contemporary US context.
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Summary: Some good points
Review: Not the most detailed book for sure. But for folks like me, thats just fine. I don't want details regarding specific cases, or laws, etc. thats too much information.
A clear overview of a problem with mainstream thought was given. The reliance of law to provide an exact answer to every possible issue. This isn't possible, as people will always come up with new issues and circumstances.
He got me thinking about our judicial system and how its being (ab)used, and thats pretty much wanted I was hoping to get out of it.
It's a good quick read for those who want to get some more input about how our justice system may have progressed over the past 50-100 years, but not get too technical.
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Summary: The Death of Common Sense Part 2
Review: Philip K. Howard's follow up to the best seller "The Death of Common Sense" is very similar to the previous work. Howard discusses how law has become an albatross to American society in may respects. This book spends a great deal of time focusing on the problems of law in the American educational system. As a veteran teacher, I can testify to the fact that many of these problems exist. However, Howard's discussions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the legal problems of the educational system. This book restates the solution from the previous book. While it is feasible in theory, it will never happen. Overall, the book was an interesting read.
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Summary: The Collapse of ...... turgid prose?
Review: Philip K. Howard's The Collapse of the Common Good is largely a political treatise - one that makes no attempt to achieve an objective analysis of the subject at hand - the development of America's "culture of whiners". By "culture of whiners" I refer to the preponderance of legal cases in America and in Canada in which the plaintiff is someone whose own lack of common sense has led into a situation in which they find themselves unhappy. The reader can heap into this purposefully vague category the assorted idiots who burn themselves with coffee, get themselves fired through ignorance or sloth, fail to achieve what they believe to be their due or who injure themselves doing what no intelligent person would consider. In essence Howard's book decries the culture of "its not my fault" that has developed in most western democratic countries since the cultural morass of the decade of the sixties. As Howard is quick to point out, as society has embraced this "it's not my fault" mentality its members have searched for someone else to blame - that someone is usually someone with money - and to punish through the misuse of the courts. Admittedly I'm on line with this thinking. In reading this book however even I couldn't countenance Howard's writing. Howard has a definite point in arguing that the judiciary is being forced to exceed its constitutional mandate in assigning fault in the absence of common sense. The problem with this book is that Howard largely eschews analysis in favour of rhetoric as he preaches to the converted. Arguing based on largely anecdotal evidence, Howard's increasingly shrill authorial voice not only undermines the importance of his message but serves to alienate even the most sympathetic reader. Strictly from an analytical point of view, the argument within The Collapse of the Common Good is even less palatable to the objective reader. Howard repeatedly focuses on the symptoms of the problems which he rails against without attempting to discern a cause. In short, Howard contents himself with flogging the dead horse of "political correctness" while ignoring the deeper question of from whence it came. To the casual reader, reading The Collapse of the Common Good - How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines our Freedom would be like listening to Paul Harvey if he had too many beers. Even a sympathetic reader is bound to be alienated by its shrill, repetitive tone and superficial content. Howard's book is not for the faint of heart nor left of centre, instead like Mao's little red book it is best in the hands of committed idealogues, to be waved a rallies and misquoted at length.
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Summary: Excellent book with some horrid editorial aspects.
Review: Philip K. Howard, The Collapse of the Common Good (Ballantine, 2001) Howard's first book, The Death of Common Sense, should be required reading in high schools and law schools across the nation. Instead, it's supported by a select few and most of the country has never heard of it, despite our best efforts. So Howard releases another book, and I pick it up. The Collapse of the Common Good takes much the same refrain as The Death of Common Sense, but turns its focus from governmental process to the fallacy of individual rights. What is important here is not what Howard says (which is, naturally, common sense), but in how he says it. His arguments are persuasive and worded so that the average joe can understand what Howard is on about. As with The Death of Common Sense, this is a book that should be required reading. I do have one problem with the book, and that is the way that the endnotes are handled. Endnotes (as opposed to footnotes) are annoying enough, and publishers should realize that the endnote is archaic (now that students have access to computers, footnotes are easily achieved by even college freshmen; the use of endnotes by professional book publishers looks even more amateur), but The Collapse of the Common Good takes this annoyance to a whole new level by not including endnote numbers in the text; the exhaustive section of endnotes has them referred to only by page number. Perhaps I should have said "exhausting" endnote section. The complete unprofessionalism of the way what should have been footnotes are handled loses the book a full point. Other than that, though, another must-read from Howard. I think I'm going to start giving them as christmas gifts, and keep giving them until people get the message. ****
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