From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 09:21:54 +0800
To: Bill Stewart <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: How's that again?
Message-ID: <m0twu6i-000932C@pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:37 PM 3/12/96 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
>At 05:40 PM 3/12/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:
>>Revise your statement to:
>>"doesn't want anyone who hasn't spent a few years in law school to pass 
>>judgement on pending legislation and the effect of supreme court decision 
>>thereon..."
>>and you'd be right on the money.
>
>I'm not a lawyer, though I've played a politician on TV.  I'll grant you
>that lawyers and other trained legal professionals can do a far better
>job of finding and analyzing cases than amateurs like myself, though I suspect
>a month or two's experience with Lexis would be enough to let many 
>of "the rest of us" outsearch the average lawyer of 50 years ago
>who had to rely on his or her wits alone.  But if the average intellegent
>person _can't_ evaluate a law and have a reasonable chance of figuring
>out what it says and what it means, there's something seriously wrong
>with the way new laws are written, as well as enforced.

Well said.  If more people lambasted this "Black Unicorn" fellow for his 
legal-elitist ways, he'd actually be forced to either shut up or use 
reasoned argument to support his odd position.

Laws, as I understand it, used to be written so that ordinary people could 
understand them.  That's the way it ought to be today, but isn't, precisely 
because the elitists have had their way for so long.  There used to be a 
saying, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."  The presumption was that you 
had a responsibility to know what the law said, and that most people could 
understand what it said, and if you didn't take the time to know it you were 
guilty despite this.  Today, that saying is laughably out of date:  When 
people like "Black Unicorn" claim that ordinary people haven't the skills to 
evaluate any law or proposed law, it is obvious that he and his ilk is a 
major portion of the problem. 


>(I suppose I've complained enough that there _is_ something
>seriously wrong them that I'm not adding any new weight here;
>if the author of a portion of a law can get up on the Senate floor
>and say that he realizes that part of the law he's proposed is
>unconstitutional and unenforceable, and that this doesn't bother him*,
>I guess it's no surprise that one of the more-or-less "good guys"
>in the Senate can propose a law so ambiguously worded that it
>looks good on the face until a good lawyer takes the time to rip
>it apart - maybe Leahy will read some of Junger's review?)

The system is sick, perhaps irretrievably so.  Dr. Strangelove (in the movie 
of the same name) stated that "deterrence is the art of making the enemy 
FEAR to attack."  I think the main problem (and the most direct solution) to 
the "politician-problem" in this country is to make government agents FEAR 
to do the wrong thing.


>> And I confirm again that I'm an elitist legal snob.
>> At least I know what I'm talking about.
>
>[* Is it true that the reason Election Day is on the _second_
>Tuesday of November is to guarantee it never falls on Guy Fawkes' Day?]

It's going to take a lot more than gunpowder to solve this problem.  
Although that would be a good start...

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com