Want Real Change? Quit Nominating Lawyers!

http://townhall.com/columnists/VictorDavisHanson/2008/09/04/want_real_change_quit_nominating_lawyers | 9-4-08 | Victor Davis Hanson

[chickadee]

It's certainly true that either the next president or next vice president will not be a white male. But does that mean de facto that the country will be run any differently?

There is, however, one area where we might have seen real change. The Democrats could have not nominated another lawyer. This may partly explain why former military officer John McCain and working-mom Sarah Palin are polling near even with Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, in a year that otherwise favors the Democrats.

A snowmobiling, fishing and hunting mom of five who was trained as a journalist seems like a breath of fresh air -- and accentuates the nontraditional background of former naval officer John McCain. If the Republicans win, it may well be that, like George Bush and Dick Cheney, or Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, they weren't members of the legal culture.

[FreedomPoster]

VDH, Steyn, Sowell, and W. Williams are the 4 guys whose columns I try not to miss.

[FrankR]

TV has made the typical American Lawyer into a walking-talking "get out of jail free" card...well, not free, but you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, over 200 years ago we left England because it got to "judicial", with lawyers run amok and morphing into would-be dictators.

In that meantime, most of the BEST presidents we've ever had WERE NOT LAWYERS. They were just the "People"...you know, the ones they talk about in that little paper called the Constitution. The "of", "by", and "for" folks.

If most of the ambulance chasers now working in this country would have showed up on the old west, they would still be either picking the feathers out of the tar, or picking buckshot out of their butts.

Young people view this as a sort of "glamor" job...no doubt urged on by older relatives with promises of purported fortunes to be made in the job. All you have to do is stay away nights combing to medical books and records to find out who has mesotheleoma and sue the crap out of the last doctor who passed that patient in the hall.

Today's law is a game of extortion...everybody is suing everybody and no one is getting rich but the lawyers.

So, what happens as these barristers climb their private evolutionary scale and reach their enevitable goal of running for office? Do they stop the blame game? Absolutely not...they just take it to a different level.

Now, if you're one of the people who think that this elected lawyer gives a damn about you, a constituent...well, you haven't been paying attention to society for the last 50 years. You've been too busy watching those TV lawyers...the image of the "noble" lawyer...like "jumbo shrimp", it's the world's most common oxymoron...mostly moron.

And they see their God given role in this world in making up rules for you and I to follow, that are almost impossible to follow, and at the same time making themselves IMMUNE to those same rules.

And, the laws they make...well, they have to be in favor of perpetuating the "blame game"...so they can make money when get out of office too.

We would have a better country if no more than 25% of Congress were ever lawyers; the presidency needs to be changed to a one-time term, 6 years. Currently, a candidate who is elected President, spends only about 2 years learning the job and trying to get things done, and then the other two years campaigning. Those two things - and abolishing the income tax and the democratic party, would set America right again. /sarc

[FrankR]

TV has made the typical American Lawyer into a walking-talking "get out of jail free" card...well, not free, but you know what I mean.

Meanwhile, over 200 years ago we left England because it got to "judicial", with lawyers run amok and morphing into would-be dictators.

In that meantime, most of the BEST presidents we've ever had WERE NOT LAWYERS. They were just the "People"...you know, the ones they talk about in that little paper called the Constitution. The "of", "by", and "for" folks.

If most of the ambulance chasers now working in this country would have showed up on the old west, they would still be either picking the feathers out of the tar, or picking buckshot out of their butts.

Young people view this as a sort of "glamor" job...no doubt urged on by older relatives with promises of purported fortunes to be made in the job. All you have to do is stay away nights combing to medical books and records to find out who has mesotheleoma and sue the crap out of the last doctor who passed that patient in the hall.

Today's law is a game of extortion...everybody is suing everybody and no one is getting rich but the lawyers.

So, what happens as these barristers climb their private evolutionary scale and reach their enevitable goal of running for office? Do they stop the blame game? Absolutely not...they just take it to a different level.

Now, if you're one of the people who think that this elected lawyer gives a damn about you, a constituent...well, you haven't been paying attention to society for the last 50 years. You've been too busy watching those TV lawyers...the image of the "noble" lawyer...like "jumbo shrimp", it's the world's most common oxymoron...mostly moron.

And they see their God given role in this world in making up rules for you and I to follow, that are almost impossible to follow, and at the same time making themselves IMMUNE to those same rules.

And, the laws they make...well, they have to be in favor of perpetuating the "blame game"...so they can make money when get out of office too.

We would have a better country if no more than 25% of Congress were ever lawyers; the presidency needs to be changed to a one-time term, 6 years. Currently, a candidate who is elected President, spends only about 2 years learning the job and trying to get things done, and then the other two years campaigning. Those two things - and abolishing the income tax and the democratic party, would set America right again. /sarc

[Chickensoup]

I refuse to do business with lawyers these days.

[wardaddy]

unfair....my favorite lawyer in Nashville is way up in Mac’s campaign here

and he’s a litigator

[Chickensoup]

“On one side, you have a woman who is a lawyer, married to a lawyer, running against a lawyer who is married to a woman who is a lawyer.

On the other side, you have a war hero married to a good looking woman who owns a beer distributorship.”with a vice presideny who is a good-looking woman married to a guy who is a four time Iron Dog winner.

[Mr. Blonde]

Further, that NO JUDGES AT ANY LEVEL could be lawyers or could have ever been a lawyer.

Yeah that would work out well. Hey I know! Let's just stick people into jobs they have no qualifications for in every profession.

[Quix]

My mother’s cousin was a Country judge. Never been an atny.

Did a widely acclaimed wonderful job.

The old boy’s network with the judges and atnys is horrifically destructive to our culture.

The Bible itself says to choose, within the Body of Christ, some humble old wise codger of no great status to decide issues.

The common man in American has been her salvation in a lot of ways through lots of crises.

The judges, atnys and their old boy’s network has shredded our Constitution and compromised and corrupted justice as well as mangled laws thousands of ways.

NO THANKS.

Defend the horrific status quo if you wish. It’s not for me.

[Quix]

The very idea

that in the land of

WE THE PEOPLE

that the people are inadequate to write their own laws and manage wise judgments . . . without hired professional word parsers, extortionists and Machiavellian manipulators otherwise called lawyers and legislators . . .

is a horrifically UNCONSERVATIVE NOTION that is shocking to read on this forum.

[Joe 6-pack]

"This will be the first no lawyer ticket to win since Grant/Wilson in 1872."

Reagan/Bush 1980/88

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I just checked and you are right.

For some reason I thought GHWB was a lawyer.

[Joe 6-pack]

For that matter, neither W or Cheney are lawyers...:-)

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Bush is not a lawyer, His father is not a lawyer. Reagan was not a lawyer. Carter was not a lawyer, Eisenhower was not a lawyer, Truman was not a lawyer.

Clinton was a lawyer. I’m not sure about Nixon, Johnson, and Ford. At least six out of nine presidents in my lifetime were not lawyers. What’s the complaint again?

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Nixon Johnson and Ford were all lawyers.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

You forgot JFK. Lawyer.

[Mr. Blonde]

Of course the prime mover of that constitution, James Madison, is a lawyer. From the beginning our country’s legislative body has been comprised mostly of lawyers.

Yes, there does need to be tort reform. I’m not saying the system is perfect. What I am saying is that at this point at very many levels the judicial system is far too complicated for the average person to give a fair trial to anyone.

Say you went to trial over a contract with someone. Do you really want someone off the street as your judge? Someone who potentially has little to no understanding of either civil procedure or contracts?

[Quix]

I’d take a wise fair perceptive old codger over a lot of judges most any day.

[Teacher317]

For the GOP in the past 31 years, only VP Dan Quayle has had a law degree.

Before this run, there has always been a lawyer in the White House (Pres or VP) since President Grant left in 1877.

(Of course, a law degree is not crucially important for the Executive Branch. It neither writes nor interprets laws.)

Carter’s VP Mondale and Pres Clinton were lawyers, but not Carter. Gore quit after his second year of law school. (He also quit divinity school after one year.) The Democrats have never elected a ticket without at least one lawyer on it.

Carter was the only Democrat President other than Andrew Johnson with no legal training. Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman, and LBJ all attended Law School, but did not graduate.

[Mr. Blonde]

Good for you. And I assume you would represent yourself in this situation? It wouldn’t be pretty what would happen what would happen when you went up against someone who knows the law. Or can this wise old codger magically grasp all of the ends and outs of the common law? Wait is this mythical person actually Merlin? That is just cheating.

[Quix]

My folks have been cheated out of far more substance and far more often . . . by high powered atnys than ever helped by any atny.

God instructs us to not think ahead what we will say when drug before the authorities—that HE will give us what to say at the time.

Sounds better, to me.