Posted by
CPT on Saturday, January 23, 2010 10:59:11 PM
One of the most insidious assaults on American Freedom is cast as the "Rule of Law".
Real, just, rule of law IS important to a civilized society and necessary for order in a Republic. The problem is that statists, elitists of the left and right (and center) have taken a simple concept, valuable to the people and corrupted it for their own aggrandizement of power.
No matter should be so complex that a regular citizen can not understand or participate in discussion of it. Laws are written by lawyers, to be interpreted by lawyers, litigated by lawyers and decided by lawyers. Even when the citizenry is engaged to decide, they can only do so with careful "instructions" and "interpretations" provided by lawyers. It is a self-perpetuating racket that doesn't better society nor benefit the citizenry. Any law that requires 2000 pages to elaborate while filled with arcane jargon is ridiculous. Any law that can't be understood by the average citizen shouldn't be considered, let alone passed.
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse". This would be considered axiomatic by many. However it is fallacious when laws are written in such a way as to be only understood by lawyers. This isn't rule of law, it is rule of lawyers.
Who opposes tort reform? Lawyers do. Individually and by industry lobby. Just judgments would make good real losses of property to plaintiffs held to be aggrieved. They wouldn't be padded by "punitive" awards justified and defined by lawyers who coincidentally get an enormous percentage of any such "punishment".
Court decisions are another travesty of the supposed "rule of law". Judges and lawyers constantly trumpet "precedent". "
Stare Decisis" A latin term that means standing by a decision. This can be good so long as the decision doesn't fly in the face of established actual law. Particularly the penultimate law of the land, the
U.S. Constitution.
Ben Shapiro notes that even lawyers can realize that bad precedent shouldn't be upheld just because it is precedent.
The Constitution was written in rather formal, yet simple English. It is easily understood by anyone with average intelligence and an 8th grade reading level. The decisions made to "interpret" it in the 20th and 21st centuries are most often based on stare decisis rather than the simple content of the document itself. This is because lawyers invariably want to make the simple, complex. Because statists and elitists who don't like the simple constraints of the foundational law want to manipulate to mean what they want rather than what is SAYS.
This isn't an "anti-lawyer" rant. There are many fine people who are lawyers and many who mean well. As with all human endeavor though, there are many who simply want to use "law" to get what they want. Power, money and influence. It is the legal system as currently constituted that is broken. There are too many lawyers. Laws aren't written for simple and singular purposes of justice. People are sued, not for justice but for riches.
Strongly consider finding others than lawyers to run for political office. Find lawyers who actually wish to simplify the law so that it is a tool for free citizens rather than an arcane science full of twisted jargon and dead language phrases. One of the main and major factors threatening American Freedom is our current system of overly complex law. You won't see this covered in the media. You won't hear many politicians make issue of this. Why? Lawyers. They are lawyers or are influenced by them. Since lawyers control the system of law and legislation real reform is a tremendously difficult challenge.