A post by Maynard
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” This is a much-remembered line from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part II.
The Economist‘s Lexington column for this week explores the question of “Law vs. Common Sense” with respect to the upcoming Obama administration. It’s worth reading for a refresher of how lawyers are ruining our nation and lives.
At a school in Florida, a five-year-old girl decided to throw everyone’s books and pencils on the floor. Sent to the head teacher’s office, she continued to wreak havoc. Her teachers dared not restrain her physically. Instead, they summoned the police, who led her away in handcuffs, howling. The teachers acted as they did for fear of being sued. A teacher at a different school was sued for $20m for putting a hand on a rowdy child’s back to guide him out of the classroom. The school ended up settling for $90,000. Understandably, many schools ban teachers from touching pupils under any circumstances. In New York City, where more than 60 bureaucratic steps are required to suspend a pupil for more than five days, teachers are so frightened of violating pupils’ rights that they cannot keep order.
Can nothing be done? The trial lawyers are a hugely powerful special interest (and they donate tons of money), especially to Democrats.
Will any of this change under Barack Obama? At first glance, the odds are poor. The new president is a lawyer from a party dominated by lawyers. His vice-president publicly thanked God last year that lawyers are such a problem for corporate America. When Mr Obama was in the Senate, he once voted for a mild curb on jurisdiction-shopping by class-action lawyers, but otherwise tended to vote against tort reform. And Democrats in the new Congress are itching to reward the lawyers who donated so generously to their election campaigns, for example by revoking the (admittedly short) statute of limitations on pay-discrimination claims, allowing lawyers to mine decades-old grievances.
On the other hand, Lexington notes that Cass Sunstein, the man Obama has chosen to evaluate new regulations, seems to be aware of the problems of excessive regulatory burden. Dare we “hope” for a “change” that’s not for the worse? Mr. Lexington is not ruling out the possibility.
I would say…no. At best we can probably hope that the issues of trial lawyers rights are going to be put behind other more important things – like wrecking the economy with massive bailouts, appeasing terrorists, and creating the new “national police force” – so that it will be a while before it happens. Maybe 2-3 years at best. Possibly even before the next election as the democrat party will need the added trial lawyer money to buy more seats in the House and Senate.
If combatants captured on the battlefield are treated as felons, I’d say the future is quite bright for trial lawyers with Obama in the White House. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 249 or so still housed at Gitmo can just call “LEE FREE”. Yippee!
This is the reason why “lawyer” governments don’t work and why goverment IS the problem. They cause the problems, then cover it up, then blame the victim who ends up being sued. Look how lawyers distroyed the medical sector. Doctors are leaving states and soon, countries if they want to continue being doctors. They can’t afford the insurance to protect them from being sued left and right. You ask yourself, “well how’s this going to work in a universal health system?” When goverment takes over your health and a accident happens, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SUE THE GOVERNMENT!!! If you don’t believe me, ask a veteran! See, the goverment has their own torts against lawsuits because its to their advantage. They seem to have a problem of giving the public sector the same torts against lawsuits. Great way to take over more power to deny the private sector the same benefits of protection and have them be sued out of existence. See, government causes the problem, by not passing laws to protect the doctors from these lawyers, then they can sit back and con a lazy citizenry. That’s just one private sector, shall we talk about the millions of regulations goverment chokes the private sector and the common citizen with? Lawyers look out for lawyers. End of story…
It’s this teeny little 95-99% of the bar that give the rest of us lawyers a bad reputation. 😉
What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish? —- one’s a bottom dwelling scum-sucker and the other’s a fish
How do you get a lawyer out of a tree? —-cut the rope
i couldn’t resist but the harm that will be done to our society by raeising a generation of undisciplined is reprehensible. But a proloteriat of undisciplined and thus unskilled is exactly what a socialists government needs (in the short term)