Perception v. reality

This week’s philosophical question: Which is more important — reality or perception?

I pose this because a federal judge in Mississippi has ruled in favor of restaurant and seafood seller defendants even though they were selling cheap fish labeled as expensive fish.

The plaintiff consumer class clearly was not getting what they thought they were paying for. They bought and ate “inexpensive frozen Foreign Fish” that was marketed as “high-priced premium local snapper and red snapper” caught in bountiful gulf waters.

Yes, Foreign Fish was capitalized. They’re not just any kind of fish.

No, the gulf in question was not named. You have to be careful about that sort of thing these days.

The plaintiff claimed that if he’d known the fish were frozen Foreigners, “he would not have purchased and ingested them.”

Do you doubt this assertion? Speciesism aside, this guy seems to be telling the truth. He spent money that he would not have had he known the truth.

Open and shut?

Nope.

It turns out the plaintiff had the Foreign Fish only three times at the defendant restaurant over a five-year period and he never complained. He also couldn’t prove that the particular fish he ate were indeed Foreigners. The consumption “caused him no harm.”

Perception wins.

Mislabel all you want, as long as no one can tell the difference and no one gets hurt. Mind over matter.

Pop quiz: The following was found in a lawsuit filed last week in federal court:

“(A) sense of frustration and a desire for greater convenience do not give defendants license to flout the law.”

What sort of plaintiff in what sort of case do you think made that statement?

Come on. You know this.

I’ll give you another hint — a partial sentence from the complaint: “Congress has instead expressly and intentionally channeled challenges to removal proceedings to a specific process in the courts of appeals ….”

Got it?

Of course, it’s a lawsuit filed by the Department of Homeland Security against federal judges in Maryland who issued an injunction stopping the agency from deporting immigrants who file habeas corpus petitions.

It’s hard to avoid due process for migrants if you can’t ship them out of the country before they get a hearing. If there’s no habeas corpus hearing, you don’t have to ignore a court order stopping deportation if there’s no order yet.

So of course the current government would rather not wait for a hearing.

By the way, the suit against federal judges in Maryland was filed in federal court in Maryland. Who judges the judges?

Note to Guinness World Records: History is being made. The Homeland Security complaint notes that “In the first 100 days of President Trump’s current term, district courts have entered more nationwide injunctions than in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000.”

And the number is growing.

Someone please apply for the record so it gets the recognition it deserves.