Riegel v. Medtronic Inc., No. 06-179 is the Supreme Court's(http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-179.pdf) should be a wake up call to all who buy into the conservative talking head approach that Republicans are for less big government...P...L...E...A...S...E. If the flurry of Federal spending, federal creation of new bureaucracies including that now infamous Department of Homeland Security, the debt accumulated under our "Republican" leadership, hasn't persuaded you, perhaps DEAD MR. Riegel will persuade you. He's the guy you don't care about whose widow is tried to sue the manufacturer of the device that broke. Well, the Supreme Court has denied the right to sue for damages in state court on claims of strict liability for faulty manufacture for a product the FDA said was okay as long as the product seems to have been manufactured according to those approved guidelines.
In the looking house mirror of sarcasm that is the only weapon of the underpowered, underrepresented dirty masses that George Bush and his empowered governmental tyrants have ignored, there is still something that TRUE REPUBLICANS can do to show their support for the Bush administration. Go have an angioplasty....I dare you. Go get put under anesthesia without a worry in the world about how your insurance will pay for your procedure, confident that your physician, (who is probably not a participating provider of any health plan if he's worth his Republican salt), and put your body on a table and hope that you wake up. Don't worry about who or where your medical device was manufactured because the FDA said it was OKAY. And when there are tens, dozens or hundreds of patients with similar outcomes to the former Mr. Riegel, and you become part of a growing number of dead patients that will ultimately perhaps even catch the attention of our government, know that you finally put your life on the line in defense of the stupidity, callousness, bureaucratic tyranny, greed motivated policies that have distinguished you from your inferior Democratic counterparts. And while your families will not be eligible to collect damages from the defective manufacturer or your medical device, you, I hope, will continue to wave your American flag in honor of an America that was never intended...one run by big business instead of meaningless individuals because in all honesty, what's one life compared to the employment of who knows how many foreign assemblers of medical devices.
And if at any point, you think through the situation, and perhaps have a moment's glimmer that the governmental protection of big business perhaps was not what the founding fathers and your beloved Adam Smith was all about, perhaps your wife will then become a PLAINTIFF, and will attempt to sue the physician for his negligence in your failed procedure. Perhaps your wife will become an ACTIVIST and will argue for a consumer law at least as good as the LEMON LAWS FOR CARS for your expired life. Perhaps, she will argue that DAMAGES are appropriate because your sorry empowered life had meaning to her, or perhaps you will be just another dead citizen who thankfully did not affect the stock price of your medical device company.
