Fist, it is a fundamental conflict of interest-most of them are members of a bar association, so they are in aposition to benefit by their actions.
Second: lawyers are trained to twist words around, so bills are written in ways that allow for maximum litigation, when challenged. Hence, challenges to public laws cost the taxpayers billions
Third: Lawyers don’t produce any tangible product-they have no clue how business operates. When George McGovern retired from the senate, he ran a ded and breakfast-and was shocked at how complicated the laws e had to deal with were.
Personally, I thinklawyers should be prohibited from public office-senators should be science/engineering Ph.Ds, representatives economics, science, or engineering majors.
I would say the same thing for politicians touting their expertise in law, or passing crap legislation I dont care about, or their family and religious credentials. Those things are pretty meaningless to me. This isnt about what each one of us cares about as our pet issue, its about how a background mainly in litigation and law seems ill served when your job is mainly making decisions and judgement. I chose philosophy and psychology because those fields give a person a solid background into the “why” of a law and the “how” it affects people. History and science allows a person at least fact-based knowledge instead of having to make up crap to support specious reasoning. And public service seems just natural when stepping into the leadership of 300 million people
Those pesky judges.
Maybe if George McGovern had ever been a lawyer, he would have understood the law better.
More generally, I think both you and the OP have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a lawyer is, and what a lawyer does. But this is an area, like religion, where no amount of reason will ever persuade people. Anyone want to misquote Shakespeare on this?
A job about making decisions that your constituents want you to make. Bush made plenty of decisions (he is, after all, the Decider). I don’t get this stuff about politicians being “above” the petty issues. That’s what they’re for. And for that matter, why would lawyers or judges be bad at making decisions? They have to make complicated decisions using their own [cough]judgement[/cough] with unclear immediate consequences all the time.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
What do you think trial lawyers do? that they just stare at computers all day, reading law?
Trial work involves knowing the file, prepping the witnesses, and understanding the human aspect of the case. when they’re in court, they’re in the trenches, dealing with the opposing counsel, dealing with their witnesses, dealing with the other side’s witnesses, dealing with the judge.
A good trial lawyer has to know what makes people tick, how best to approach a particular witness, what types of questions will be productive with that witness and what ones won’t. they have to be able to deal well with opposing counsel. and they have to have a good read for who the judge is going, and what types of arguments will appeal to the jury.
A trial is nothing but social/human interaction. yes, there’s law involved, but the human side of the case is essential to the trial lawyer’s skills.
Those subjects are subsumed into the field of jurisprudence, which is much of what the study of law is. The study of jurisprudence includes the writings of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Jeremy Bentham, John Austin, and countless others. A lawmaker having knowledge of behaviorism and Descartes is great, but why shouldn’t a lawmakers knowledge of the contrasts between natural law theory and legal positivism, or sociological jurisprudence and its role in Brown v. Board of Education, be given equal weight?
Ralph, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Yes, but shouldn’t that be true for any good citizen, or at least any well educated person?
The “why” of the law and its practical effect on hypothetical future cases is actually what you spend the vast majority of law school learning. What do you think law school is about, anyway?
How do you think the Jews indoctrinate their minions into running the world? Huh? :dubious:
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
What lawyers study is the law. What lawyers actually do on a day-to-day basis is mediate relationships between individual persons, corporate entities, and governmental entities. The practice of law is essentially the practice of human interactions.
I would just like to say that when I ran in 2006, according to Elections Canada I was the only candidate in the entire country to identify his or her profession as translator.
I can only conclude that translators are scandalously underrepresented in Parliament, which is all the more shocking considering how many of them are employed by the federal government.
[hijack/] The term of choice around here is “interpreter”, and definitely not “translator”. Somehow “translating” is seen as a demeaning term, as something more machine-like that doesn’t convey the cultural background knowledge of someone who is “interpreting” and therefor adding the appropriate nuance to provide better communication.
Is there such a distinction in your area?[hijack/]
Politics is ‘its own thing’.
There seems to be a presumption here that politicians come from people who happen to be lawyers and then go into politics. What if someone wanted to be a politician all along? Where is the “politician” major in college? It’s generally called law.
Some here are describing the attributes of different areas of study and different professions - and how they come into play when the person enters politics.
It seems to me that the a politician is someone with an interest and aptitude for various civic issues, is good with speaking, networking, socializing, etc - I could list dozens of other attributes common in politicians.
The people with those attributes often go into politics, regardless of what they studied or practiced professionally.
I know you addressed this to Matt, but having dealt with both interpreters and translators at various points in my life, maybe I can provide some insight.
Yes, in Canada, there is a distinction. An interpreter provides an oral representation of what a speaker in a different language is saying. The simultaneous interpreters at the UN or in the Canadian Parliament are good examples, as is a sign language interpreter. A translator, on the other hand, translates written material from one language into another. Most of the technical documents I wrote in English were translated into French by a qualified and accredited translator, much like I suppose Matt is, although I don’t know what kind of material he translates.
A translator can also be an interpreter, and vice-versa, but doesn’t necessarily need to be. As I recall things, there were certain educational requirements to be a translator and certain other educational requirements to be an interpreter; and not everybody who went the one path, went the other as well. At any rate, certainly in Canada, there is a difference between the two terms, and calling someone like Matt a “translator” is neither demeaning nor degrading to Matt or to his occupation.