From: karn@qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 18:03:18 PDT
To: tcmay@netcom.com
Subject: Re:  "Let's kill all the lawyers..."
Message-ID: <9307070103.AA23132@servo>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Amen! Well spoken, Tim.

Last night I saw the Saferstein remarks you mention. I think they hit
the local California TV stations before being picked up by CNN. I
fully agree that PC is *really* getting out of hand if lawyers are now
to be considered one of the downtrodden minority groups.

Saferstein doesn't seem to understand the serious role satire plays in
actually *preventing* violence in our society. Lawyers and politicians
(lawyers being the larval stage of the latter) hold a tremendous
amount of power over the rest of us. Satire (including jokes,
political cartoons and the like) might not actually do much to lessen
that power, but it does give the rest of us a chance to vent some of
the resentment that might otherwise build into violence in more
people.

And of course there is satire's unique selectivity. It's hard to
satirize somebody who doesn't deserve it. But a hypocritical lawyer or
a politician with a bloated ego... well, I don't think bullets ever
get any more magic than this.  *They* may still believe in their own
overriding self-importance, but thanks to satire, the rest of us don't
have to!

The real irony of trying to ban "lawyer bashing" is that some of the
best (most critical) lawyer jokes are told by the lawyers themselves!
So maybe we *should* pass a law against it. What better way to get
more lawyers off the street and where they belong? (Short of cloning
some more T. Rexes, of course...was there also applause in your
theater during that scene?)

Phil