It turns out the phrase may have been misinterpreted, though it doesn't make the passengers' actions any less heroic.
In a bid to prevent trivial actions, any statement must also have caused "substantial harm" for a libel action to be brought under the new plans.
Kaufman realized that those quotation marks could be put on any words, any actions, any thing — and turn anything in existence into a joke, opening up a seemingly infinite abyss of put-ons and deceptions.
Therefore, one can easily imagine things reaching a certain level of predisposition and a lawyer going, "My client is not responsible for his actions any more than someone mentally ill is responsible".
How are her actions any different (you can almost hear her think) from those of the mining companies -- the ones that have poisoned, maimed and manipulated everyone she dearly loves?
When there are "negative externalities" — costs that economic actors impose on others without paying a price for their actions — any presumption that the market economy, left to its own devices, will do the right thing goes out the window.
