Is that a fair assessment of lawyers? I’ll grant you that we’re* trained to think in detail, because a slight alteration of fact can change the outcome of a case. Regardless, I think we’re equally trained (or SHOULD be, anyway) to look at issues such as public policy and the effect that legal outcomes might have on larger issues. At the very least, my school requires a number of ethics and policy courses by students so that we can consider “what is the larger effect of this law”?
Additionally, I’d think that the legal field, like any other profession, has opportunities for leadership. I.e., state bar associations exist for the legal profession to regulate itself; such a structure by its nature requires some lawyers to step up to the plate and determine broad policy for everyone else in the field.
My point being that just because lawyering requires a mind that can focus on minute detail doesn’t necessarily mean the lawyer’s ability to lead or think broadly is somehow surpressed.
*I admit that I am still a student and not-yet-a-lawyer; it’s just easier to say “we” here.
I think I’m starting to see the problem here. This thread does not exist in a vacuum as an intellectual exercise.
There may be some merit to Tex’s basic premise if it is carried to its logical conclusion. We ought to generally prohibit people with a trade or profession from participation in public life as a candidate for public office. Actors, being trained to read a script in a convincing manner, ought to be excluded. Clergy since they owe an absolute duty to their particular deity and sept should likewise be ineligible. Men and women of business with their constant concern for gathering and getting have an insoluble conflict of interest with the public good. Writers and artists and teachers, especially college teachers are ivory tower types and unsuited for the practical big picture give and take of political life. Physicians are too concerned with minutia with all those tests and charts and little teeny blood vessels and are unsuited as well. Soldiers and sailors are not sufficiently broad minded to be public official, all they know is following order and spit shining boots.
So who does that leave to make up the political class. Maybe we are down to policemen, insurance agents and flight controllers. Maybe all the States and the nation can have a legislature like my home state–it is made up of retired farmers, insurance agents and a few lawyers with no practice. By God, our friend is right. Only people with nothing better to do should be in politics.
Well, the main clause of the First Amendment is “Congress shall make no law.” Unless you’re an anarchist, you have to admit that the subordinate clauses and phrases attached to that do have a reasonable and valid meaning. And you did not give the text of the Second Amendment; you gave the second and grammatically independent clause of it. Many people believe that the first half of it, being a subordinate clause that appears to be a restrictive one, is in there for a reason too – though they differ as to what that reason is – as I’m sure you’re well aware!
And as for laws needing to be explicit – most criminal codes are very clearly written, for an excellent reason: any law that does not specify what actions are made criminal by it is declared unconstitutional for vagueness – “the heinous and abominable crime against nature” being penalized by a given term in prison is a classic example – what is “the heinous and abominable crime against nature”: anal sex? willful pollution? proclaiming Idealist philosophy? If the average citizen can’t read the law and discover what acts he’s commanded to refrain from, the law gets thrown out.
Where your problem lies, I think, is in two specific areas: intricate regulatory codifications and legal jargon. But I am fairly content in knowing that somewhere in CFR there are detailed regulations specifying permitted and forbidden uses of gallium arsenide and thallium iodide, to pick two chemical compounds at random with no idea of what their degree of toxicity or possible uses are. Professional chemists know, people who use them in their businesses know, and the chemical engineers who write the regulations for the EPA know, and that’s fine by me.
And I’m visualizing a fairly successful businessman. He owns, as an investment, a working farm run by a competent farm manager, in partnership with three other men, their titles to the land being undivided tenancies in common; together with his brother and sister, he inherited his late parent’s summer place in joint tenancy; and he owns his home together with his wife as tenants by the entireties. He has no clue what these terms actually mean – he told his lawyer what he wanted to accomplish in each case, and the lawyer ensured that each deed reflected his tenant’s desires. He can sell his share of the farm to someone else without anyone else having a say; neither he nor his siblings can sell their share of a place dear to them all without mutual agreement among the three of them; and he and his wife constitute a single legal entity with the lifespan of the survivor among the two of them so far as his home is concerned. His will leaves his property to his wife if she survives him, but if he outlives her, it’s to go to his three children or, if any of them have died, to his seven grandchildren per capita and not per stirpes, because he loves them equally and not to the extent of how many children their parents had.
Lawyerly jargon – but equipped to specify clearly what a layman’s wishes are – just as I don’t need to know plumbers’ jargon to know that putting in pipes “about this big around and about this long” is not sufficient specification. I have no idea what “lead wiping” might be – but I can assume that the licensed plumber I engage does, and will engage in it or refrain from it as is appropriate to the plumbing job I’ve hired him to do.
Lawyers are human too. Humans in time drift towards
self-aggrandizement. Laws are made by lawyers.
Is it a wonder that our laws can’t be contested without
the paid enlistment of a lawyer?
One hundred percent of the laws that were passed last year
by the US House and Senate and fifty state legislators
were passed by lawyers.
Wow!
John Stuart Mill believed that two prime tenets of law are necessary for the conduct of government in a free society;
no retroactive laws could be made, and all laws must be so clearly written so that they can be understood by even
the least of the governed.
Lawyers should give up their right to hold public office.
Convicts do.
Da-dum-dum–CHING! Minty’s here all week. Next, the guy that juggles chainsaws.
Anyway, legislators that used to be lawyers don’t even write the laws anymore. Industry insiders sit down with their lawyers, run it through their favorite politician, and present it on the floor. Politicians are often merely conduits for legislation. Wondering who wrote the new bankruptcy reform? The banks that are sick of you deadbeads defaulting on your credit cards, that’s who. Oh, a sick kid? Too bad. Pay up, forever.
How can lawyers, defenders of every side, always be wrong? I can see “never right more than half the time.” I’m a mostly pro-gun, old-school Liberal Republican / libertarian lawyer myself.
[smile] Bless you, Beagle, “ah, the glory that was Rome, etc.” But life is nothing but persistent, you will now amend your ways and once again become a man. Amongst men.
Well, I’ve seen more than a few laws that look like they were “passed” by legislators in the sense that they resemble feces – but I think the term you wanted was “legislatures.”
Minty, that was a good cup of coffee, and we’ll never get the stains out of the Bible I was using for reference on another thread that was lying next to the computer stand. Give a guy some warning when next you perpetrate a one-liner like that, willya?!
[…perplexed…] Yeah, 'cause then we would “make sure the people we elect to develop and enact sensible legislation have no expertise in legal terminology, no knowledge of legal precedence and no experience in the interpretation of poorly written legislation.”
I don’t think so. It’s rather like prohibiting mechanical engineers from writing signs for bridges.
NOTICE: MAINTAIN 5 RADIANS CLEARANCE FROM DOWNTHROWN SIDE OF GRABEN BETWEEN LATERAL SPAN AND CARRIAGE TRUSS AT ALL TIMES
Actually, it’s even more like prohibiting any participation of mechanical engineers in the determination of bridge weight limits.
NOTICE: BRIDGE MAY COLLAPSE IF MORE THAN SEVERAL VEHICLES OF MODERATE WEIGHT TRAVERSE IT UNDER SOME CONDITIONS. THEREFORE WEIGHT LIMIT ON THIS BRIDGE IS 4000 LBS
That’ll be a damned safe bridge; however, potential volume of traffic may be drastically limited.
My only point was that keeping lawyers out of lawmaking, rather than leading to clearer or more “common sense” laws, would likely result in less effectual, less precise and focused laws simply due to the absence of available expertise. Certainly, a law degree is not necessary for a legislator to craft effective law. But it certainly helps if those who spend the most time observing the practical application of laws participate in the process, wouldn’t you think?
Please allow me to respond to Texican’s proposal without trying to justify the entire structure of US government.
Yes, that is rather concrete. Of course, you haven’t quoted the whole thing, conveniently omitting the part of the Amendment that runs contrary to your position. Of course, that would make it look less clear and concrete, wouldn’t it?
In other words, you just committed the same deceptive conduct that you (erroneously) accused minty of doing, because citing the complete amendment would undercut your argument.
Any lawyer who tries that in court proceedings gets quickly reamed out by the judge once it’s discovered. We’re under a professional obligation to disclose all relevant authorities, including those that go against our position.
That’s funny!