What triggered my rant was several things that converged in my mind from this thread: check it out. We have so much superfluous litigation with attorneys shopping judges along with liberal judicial activism based on "settled law" that is largely "bad precedent" that it stirred a lifelong resentment in me about the whole incestuous system.
I would agree with you and the things I read on your FR home page about the essential value and rights of the individual and that makes me ever angrier at the judicial branch as it was supposed to be the protector of individuals from the mobocracy, aka, democracy.
Did I detect a little hint of concern on your part over the right to bear arms? You're not one of those proponents of the right to arm bears, are you?
I've always thought that politics is the process where we make decisions on public policy without killing each other and when that fails, we go to war... even civil war. What blows me away is when Demonicrats get A JUDGE to help them violate the laws that govern moves like the Toricelli maneuver.
Legal remedies are rarely moral remedies anymore. Our system has degenerated into the Al Davis mentality of "Just win baby," by whatever means, no matter how deceptive or even outright fraudulent in some cases. I understand your perspective on flaky politicians but they're not the only cowards.
I wish your reply were not so stimulating to me as this my favorite ranting subject and you've got to stop pushing my buttons. My problem is that I care about our democratic process within our Republic and I don't like the way it's being abused and corrupted to make suckers of individuals that believe in the traditional American culture with borders and limits and taboos, etc.
Now I'd be interested in your responses as I see you are a truth seeker. Anyone that has poured over even the Urantia Book and the Bible to find truth is alright with me!!! (How much of Ayan Rand have you read and how much of objectivism do you buy? I ask as you seem to object to emotion! I just considered it passion.(grin))
We live in, possibly, the most litigous society there has ever been. I think this is because we seem to be living in one of the most regulated societies there has ever been. No one is actually left with personal descretion nowadays, it's all been usurped by regulation.
There is a behavioral concept of controll/ counter-controll. Every controll imposed on a person or group results in a counter measure toward the controlling authority. The system is set up so that the legal system is the primary continuum for that expression. I believe that what we see as superffluous litigation is frequently just the expression of that counter controll response. I think that it is frequently misguided expression in whom it is aimed at (like a bad day at work resulting in kicking the dog an yelling at the kids instead of kicking the boss, or freepers attacking lawyers instead of the law and the lawmakers). Sometimes it isn't completely misdirected. Like malpractice suits against doctors. The medical system is totlaly controlled by the medical industry. No one can have access to any part of the system except through a physician (heck, I can't even buy a simple anesthetic for when I need to sew up a knife wound or something. Physicians have outlawed that.). This total controll of the health care system places a persons health care not under his own controll, but under the controll of the physician controlled regulatory agencies. A lot of suits are, in reality, people saying "so you want to controll me? And then you let me down? well I'll show you." when the assumed superiority of the system fails thorugh an individuals doctors errors. It's really the sytem that is more at fault than the doctor, but the doctor is the only one available to attack.
I think that the rise in litigation is directly related to the amount of controll (number of laws) placed on the population at large. It wasn't this way 50 years ago (except in subhuman places like NYC). But we weren't very regulated 50 years ago.
Political differences aren't the reason. Both sides always seem to think the other is the evil lawyer side. the democrats bash republican lawyers and judges over the florida hanging chad affair and the Republican bash democrat lawyers and judges over Lautenberg and such. Likewise liberals complain about the legal abuse and power of the NRA and conservatives complain about the legal abuse and power of the ACLU. You could take both sides rethoric and substitute names and it would be impossible to say which was which. Everyone blames the lawyers and the courts, but no one wants to take the time to understand what the law is or how it works. Prior to the internet, I used to spend a great deal o f time at the courthouse law library. I rarely saw anyone there, and when I did it was always an attorney or legal professional. Never a private citizen, the ones who are really in charge of it all. Almost never see uninvolved parties in a courtroom observing procedures either. How many lawyer bashers here, or on the other side, do you suppose have ever even bothered to read a case or suscribe to a legal research service? Most seem to want to place blame and make radical changes based on their own ignorance of the system. they just have this mythological idea of evil lawyers and judges running roughshod over their rights (makes no difference which side it is). It isn't lawyers and judges that are the problem, it's you and me. Ask almost anyone you find complaining about lawyers and judges to name their local state district judges and exactly what their complaints are against them. Ask them the procedures for retaining or removing them. You will usually not get an answer. If you get an answer it will often be innacurate or completely erroneous.
I wish your reply were not so stimulating to me as this my favorite ranting subject and you've got to stop pushing my buttons
Oh, come now. You know I wouldn't do that! :)
I ask as you seem to object to emotion!
I don't really object to emotion. There are many good things to say about emotion. Someone is bound to think of one eventually.
So ... Emotion. Well, ... I have nothing against emotion, I've actually known many emotional people. In fact, ... some of my best ... friends ... have been ... emotional.
Actually, I'm more of a pragmatist than an objectivist. Objectivism frequently does fall within the framework of pragmatism. So does emotion on ocassion. What works is all I am really concerned with. Or the consequences of what works.