[stephenjohnbanker]

“” “All the extravagance and incompetence of our present Government is due, in the main, to lawyers, and, in part at least, to good ones. They are responsible for nine-tenths of the useless and vicious laws that now clutter the statute-books, and for all the evils that go with the vain attempt to enforce them. Every Federal judge is a lawyer. So are most Congressmen. Every invasion of the plain rights of the citizens has a lawyer behind it. If all lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones sold to a mah jong factory, we’d be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.”
—H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), “Breathing Space”, The Baltimore Evening Sun, 1924-08-04. Reprinted in A Carnival of Buncombe. -—————————————————————

If H.L. were to come back alive today, he would die of a heart attack very quickly.

144 posted on Monday, April 02, 2012 11:01:44 AM by stephenjohnbanker

On a different thread at almost the same time.....amazing : )

[Bigun]

Quite ironic that we have a republican form of government composed of (supposedly) three separate and independent branches which, as of this date, is run, almost entirely, by officers of the court i.e. lawyers!

[Bigun]

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.

Excerpted from:

The Federalist No. 47 The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts, New York Packet, Wednesday, January 30, 1788,[James Madison]

[wordsofearnest]

Great post. When I went with the family to my S-I-L’s law school graduation, I believe I was the only who felt nervous around over 200 attorney’s and shook my head at the waste of brainpower.