What a terrific comment! I’d add just one thing. You mentioned that “and the overwhelming majority of these people in these institutions [Congress and the judiciary] are lawyers.” It just makes sense that most in the judiciary are lawyers. It’s a little like saying most surgeons are doctors. But the voters choose the members of Congress. If they don’t want lawyers making their laws, they have every right to vote them out. That’s the thing about a democracy. Our government is just as good, and as bad, as we choose it to be.

While I agree that our democratic republican form of government is the best that has ever been devised, this form of government must be predicated on a society that has some semblance of honor, if not in fact, then in principle.

Many in our society laud cheating the system, steal from the system and snicker when they succeed. If the self-aggregating ideology of self and greed has become the predominant ethic in a society, it must necessarily bleed over into our institutions of law and governance.

You see, I think all the corruption that we see in our Congress and in our Judicial Branch are but expressions of “We the People”, and the overwhelming majority of these people in these institutions are lawyers.

But these lawyers in power are just men, like the rest of us.

As to lawyers actually practicing laws, they too get a bad rap because it happens to be the duty of their profession in the case of criminal law to defend the indefensible— and on occasions, they succeed, even though it is incomprehensible that they do.

Take for instance the burglar who sues the victim’s house because the fell through the glass roof and wins. This was a civil case a few years ago in Texas where the judge ruled in favor of the burglar for thousands of dollars.

This was a clear case of judicial insanity. The judge should have thrown the case out of court before it began and thrown the lawyer in jail for contempt of court for bringing the case to him in the first place. Sadly, this wasn’t what happened. (I personally think judges who hand down rulings like these should be impeached and snatched from the bench and put on trial.)

But in cases like these, how else could it be? Lawyers are just people, like us. How many times have I seen people commit the injury and then play the “victim”? How often have I seen people belittle and scream and justify it because they are “victims” of whatever?

It’s perversion in extremis and lawyers are not exempt from it; they are just more visible and spectacular practitioners of a societal malignancy.

Lawyers defend criminals, manipulate and twist the law for money and their clients (who are “WE the People”), are used to stack the deck against the less affluent and destroy them in legal defense fees. The list of abuses are endless, and, yes, those resentments against lawyers are not unfounded.

However, lawyers also defend the innocent. They can guide law-abiding citizens out of potential troubles and avoid ruin.

And when falsely accused, there is no more beautiful sight than a good lawyer speaking on your behalf.

Yes, DQ, like Churchill said, there hasn’t been a better system of government devised. But I would also caution that it was Plato who said that democracies devolve into anarchy and then tyranny.

Only lawyers (who happens to sit on the Supreme Court) are in the position to argue that the Second Amendment “militia” meant only state militia, even though dictionaries from the late 18th century clearly state that “militia” is defined as every able-bodied man. The dictionary is still sitting at William and Mary College.

With the twisting of the law in a subjective free-for-all meaning for those affluent enough to do the twisting, it is a short step to anarchy.

Totalitarian tyranny will not be far behind. And should such at time come, it would not be just the lawyers who would be responsible. It would be all of us, for where do you think lawyers come from except from among our ranks, We the People? Not from a tree or a delivery pelican, I can tell you that.

America would not have failed us then. We would have failed America.

One of the very great frustrations in my own case was that the opposing team was allowed to make allegations without evidence to keep the trail going and they were not required to put any evidence on the table as the trial dragged on and on. In fact, there was no evidence, just allegations (the case was eventually dismissed with prejudice…but had it not been for an angel friend and attorney (smiley face, here) who helped me out pro bono, I would have been destroyed financially by the end of the case).

You might not like this, but I also believe that we should be able to sue opposing counsel or to receive summary damages from same if they knowingly supported spurious tort activity. Would that have avoided a Dow Corning situation? I simply don’t know. I recognize that one problem in this is that you can always get a judgment in your favor, but collecting on that judgment might not happen for centuries as your opponent can drag out the collection process in court as well.

Your thoughts?

I expect many of us have violated principles at one time or another; and if they were truly such, we never forget that weakness.

But isn’t that the principle of self-interest, when it is the Left advocating such things yet they aren’t the ones that will die or get killed by these “interventions”?

I was planning on blogging on this anyway, but was encouraged to by Tiresias’s comment that attorneys should turn away paying clients with unmeritorious cases.

The justice system rightfully gives judges, appeal courts, and legislators this power. Lawyers are only supposed to represent their client and present their side of the argument. They aren’t there to present the other side of the argument, thus making them much like mercenaries that fight for whoever pays them. Which is one reason why the public doesn’t like them.

If a lawyer will go up against you just cause somebody paid them more money than you, does that motivate trust on the part of the general public? Not really.

I suppose what irks me most about American liberals (and, sometimes, American conservatives as well) is that they are so willing to call on others to sacrifice for their principles. But that’s a subject for another post.

Calling on others to pay for your bennies is free. When has an American ever rejected real, free, stuff?

There obviously needs to be tort reform and a crack down on judges and lawyers and appeals courts and politicians that controls such processes.

Crack em all down, if you ask me, but that’s unlikely to happen all at once.

But rather than attack what is obviously a deeply held prejudice against attorneys (based on unfortunate personal experience, perhaps?) let me ask you something. Was it Churchill who said that democracy is the worst system in the world except for all the others ever invented? Our legal system is the same way. It really is nearly as awful as you say it is, but it’s the best system yet devised. What would you replace it with?

For the record, the settlement enabled me to buy a used Rambler, which was fair given the age and value of my car. I didn’t want to make money off the accident, but I didn’t want to be intimidated by a sleazebag.