Philip K. Howard’s speech “Four Ways to Fix a Broken Legal System” at TED Talk revolves around the topic of law and judgment. I agree with his claim that people become overconfident in the righteousness of the legal system, which hinders freedom. Philip also adds the point on the fact that the law should work for the entire society and not for individual conflicts. I also agree with speaker’s ideas that many people are highly concerned by their personal rights, where citizens undermine the importance of legislative measures that have an effect on a national scale.
I agree with Howard’s next point that the system of education is filled with numerous strict regulations which hinder the development of learners. For example, he mentions the case of an educator who was not allowed to drive students to the leadership conference due to liability measures. The school provided a bus with a capacity of 60 people for three event participants, which was highly inefficient.
In addition, teachers have to spend an entire month dealing with an unsatisfied parent who sues an educator for giving a lower grade due to a missed deadline. This flaw of legal system forces teachers to provide higher grades, even though sometimes students do not deserve them. The main reason is that educators do not want to spend a lot of time being involved in the case where they are most likely to lose.
The last point is made on challenges in communication between doctors and patients. I agree that due to the aggressiveness of citizens and their full reliance on lawyers, medical professionals are forced to be highly careful in communicating with patients, because the latter may sue them for “outrageous” statements.
I think video’s message is highly important, because these strict regulations eliminate freedom of creativity, instead of serving as boundaries.