I usually see our two-party system as two teams of hired guns whose methods are the same and whose goals are more alike than different...watched by a betting sadistic crowd who cheer when someone they dislike gets shot. Last man standing wins.
Recently I read an article...another "who shot who" of political grist that is a blatant example of the charade. But hidden in the unpleasant prejudice I found something that rang true and gave me a different perspective on politicians and specially on lawyers who become politicians. Ignore the party talk and concentrate on the individuals, their background and modus operandi. Can you see what I see in that article printed below?
The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and HillaryClinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice
presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the
Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party not so! President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Fristis a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers.
The Lawyers' Party see business people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the money rich big business opposition in a court, while they are defenders of the common man suing for his daily bread.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing goods of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, with extreme prejudice without regard to justice or moral constraint. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse
language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become 'adverse parties' of our very government. We are not all litigants in some
vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place should be modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. The power of lawyers in America is too great.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy. When prayer was excluded from public education, via
Supreme Court decision, who was the beneficiary ... the lawyers who got paid...no child gained a
thing.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business.
Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
Perhaps Americans will see that a majority of lawyers nurture "something for nothing", greed and vengeance with promises that are often unreachable or without conscience...that they get paid regardless of the outcome and are rarely held accountable. A lot of politicians are that way too...maybe because they are lawyers.Of course, that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.
