The Collapse of the Common Good:
How Americas Lawsuit Culture
Undermines Our Freedom by Philip
K. Howard
The Joke (Of The Legal System) Is On Us
Author Philip K. Howard returns with the same storytelling style and
supreme reasonableness that made his first book, The Death of Common
Sense, such a smash hit in 1995. He begins The Lost Art of Drawing the
Line by noting the damage predatory litigation has done to the communal
fabric of the United States: Social relations in America, far from steadied
by laws sure hand, are a tangle of frayed legal nerves. He tells how
seesaws have started to vanish from playgrounds, how teachers are
banned from touching students, and how emergency-room staff are
blocked from attending to patients off hospital grounds--even if they can
see them bleeding to death just 30 feet away. These arent just
speculations, a parade of hypothetical horror stories--they are actual
trends and events that Howard describes and documents. The ability to

weave dozens of anecdotes like these into his narrative is one of Howards
great strengths, and it allows him to make important points in entertaining
ways. Yet the book is much more than a collection of outrageous stories
or a mere broadside against the legal system--though the legal system
does come in for plenty of criticism. Instead, its a meditation on the
meaning of freedom, why freedom cannot exist outside of authority, and
why individuals in positions of authority should have the ability to make
decisions based on sound judgment. There is a temptation to secure
liberty by restricting authority through the law, but this can be overdone,
and it carries a high price: Put law or any other formal construct in the
middle of daily dealings, and people will start looking to the law instead of
to one another. Then things get much worse: The more our common
institutions fail us, the more Americans want to limit their authority.
Through a downward cycle of distrust, legal controls, [and] worse failure ...
we drive Americans governing institutions further into the bureaucratic
maw. That is a terrible place to be, where no one is held accountable and
antisocial behavior rules. And it has nothing at all to do with freedom.
--John J. Miller
Personal Review: The Collapse of the Common Good: How
Americas Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom by Philip K.
Howard
Author Philip K. Howard returns with an extended lesson he started
teaching us back in 1994. Sad to say, this book's content reveals that his
best selling The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating
Americadid little to dint the damage of predatory litigation. Hopefully, this
book's teachings will take hold. At least the author is trying.
As a corporate director of Human Resources, I see the damage on a
weekly and often daily basis. As I am still employed - and would like to
remain as such - I cannot give specific examples (some of which are worse
than anything you will find in the book). Suffice it to say, that the national
culture of wanting something for nothing is in a horrible condition. Besides
the inordinate cost in time and money, there is the hidden cost associated
with loss of morale. This is often not considered when discussing frivolous
litigation. The `good' people of the world see what is going on. They are
not operating with blinders.
I enjoyed the author's use of real-life anecdotes to highlight and explain
his reasoning. Due to my afore-mentioned position, I may not be as
shocked as others when I hear these stories but they are an excellent
reminder of our current course. That is, we are heading for the reef. To
read more on this you may want to check out Glenn Beck's Common
Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by
Thomas Paine and Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
I did read several of the reviews and noted that one reviewer stated that
libertaria.ns are part of the status quo and do not want the system to
change. As a libertarian, nothing could be further from the truth.

I hope you find this review helpful.
Michael L. Gooch, SPHR
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