The entrenched and incestuous relationship between lawyers and the machinery of government is precisely why this country is going down the crapper.
Lawyers usually tell you what you can’t do, not what is possible. They are not a creative or very productive profession. Ideally they should not be the majority of legislators.
Judging by the caliber of those in Congress, that is not a badge of honor.
The great patriot and tax rebel Irwin Schiff wrote that legislators should surrender their law licenses upon taking the oath of office.
He believed that practicing lawyers are part of the judiciary, and so have no place in the legislature.
I don’t belive this is something to be proud of. These graduates have sent the country down the crapper.
The Bible, Shakespeare, and the Book of Mormon, among other sources, share at least one thing in common. They all have similiar insights about Lawyers
Harvard, Yale, Georgetown — there’s our problem right there.
We need a Congress full of engineers. Analytical, no-nonsense, practical, can-do types. Unfortunately, all engineers are too smart to run for Congress.
Where is the eloquence of a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson, or even of a Reagan?
The very nature of the "miracle at Philadelphia" was one of passionate defense of liberty for future generations, selflessness in the face of danger to the personal life and property of the participants, and of a greater interest in the lives and liberties of countrymen than in the careers of themselves.
We pray that Divine Providence will send such leaders for this critical moment in America's history!
Perhaps leaders in Washington today might consider Jefferson's description of how he and his contemporaries in the early days approached matters of interest for the new nation:
Thomas Jefferson:
"Sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, he asked how I could sit in silence hearing so much false reasoning which a word should refute? I observed to him that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible. That in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general I was willing to listen. If every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other of the numerous debaters, it was enough: if not, I thought it sufficient to suggest the omission, without going into a repetition of what had been already said by others. That this was a waste and abuse of the time and patience of the house which could not be justified. And I believe that if the members of deliberative bodies were to observe this course generally, they would do in a day what takes them a week, and it is really more questionable, than may at first be thought, whether Bonaparte's dumb legislature which said nothing and did much, may not be preferable to one which talks much and does nothing. I served with General Washington in the legislature of Virginia before the revolution, and, during it, with Dr. Franklin in Congress. I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves. If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send 150. lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, & talk by the hour? That 150. lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected."
I have a low opinion of “lawmakers”.
Most lawyers get paid for how long they work. So they have no real incentive to end up resolving the issues and problems.