From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 11:07:45 +0800
To: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Subject: Re: How's that again?
Message-ID: <199603130737.XAA22798@ix15.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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.

(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?)

> 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?]
#--
#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281
# "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened
# to halt the growth of Internet use.  [...] Government control of news media 
# generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and
# social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who
# exceed the permissable."  - US government statement on China...