The Case Against Lawyers
July 29, 2003
No sooner does one attorney attempt to ban Oreo cookies than another shmoe with a law degree is insisting that McDonald's warns its patrons that, because of the high fat and caloric content in their product, nobody should indulge more than once-a-week. Furthermore, he wants McDonald's and, I assume, all other fast food chains to list the nutritional facts about their burgers, fries and malts, on the menu. Hey, I have a better idea! How about if they just replace the golden arches with a skull and crossbones?
I am not going to make an argument for junk food, except to say that the reason people buy the stuff isn't because they're so silly as to think it's the healthiest fare available, but because it's cheap and it tastes pretty good. Leave it to an attorney to insist the federal nannies step in and interfere with free enterprise. But, then, lawyers, nearly always being of the liberal persuasion, believe that the bureaucrats in Washington are a lot smarter and far more trustworthy than the folks they theoretically represent.
This latest example of our wacky legal system got me to thinking. And what I'd like to know is this: How is it that in a society in which everything from toys to toasters come with dire warnings attached, lawyers don't?
I mean, even those few simpletons who don't know that greasy meat patties aren't a health food know that much of what's wrong with America is the fault of the legal establishment. So, why is it we don't slap warning labels on these assorted ABA-approved pedophile defenders, ambulance chasers and run-of-the-mill shysters? Just a few that readily come to mind: "Only The Other Guy's Clients Are Ever Guilty," "Will Say Anything to Get on TV," "Give Me 40% or Give Me Death," "Will Sue for Food" and "Hitler: Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty."
The trouble is that we can't merely dismiss this gaggle of geese as a sorry bunch of clowns. Their influence is too widespread. For instance, although everybody loves to point the finger at pharmaceutical companies for the soaring costs of health care in this country, frivolous lawsuits and the subsequent expense of medical insurance is a far bigger reason.
But the true bottom feeders of the legal profession are criminal attorneys. Under the guise of giving everyone the best defense that money can buy, these self-righteous frauds dedicate their lives to trying to spring murderers, rapists and child molesters.
They blithely defend their actions on the grounds that their concerns are with the law, not with justice. That sounds swell, but when you get past the spin, it makes them nothing more than accessories to all the crimes committed by their felonious clients. (Even Alan Dershowitz estimates that over 90% of all criminal defendants are guilty! Yet in each and every case, some mouthpiece is trying to con a judge or jury into letting them go free.)
One can only hope and pray that these pettifoggers will, one and all, ultimately face the Big Judge in the Sky--and that He, at least, will care less about legal technicalities and more about meting out divine justice.
Even people who have no idea where the quotation originated have been known to agree with the suggestion that, "The first thing we do, let's kill the lawyers." But, unfortunately, as Charles Dudley Warner once observed about the weather, "Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it."
In any case, wouldn't it make more sense if, instead of allowing some litigious lout to tie up the courts with his junk food concerns, we simply took a page out of Nancy Reagan's playbook and just said no to Happy Meals?
©2003 Burt Prelutsky
