As liberals and conservatives in this world seek change, we all run up against the same obstacle.
Question: What is the difference between a dead skunk lying in the middle of the road and a dead lawyer lying in the middle of the road?
Answer: There are skid marks in front of the skunk.
Question: How do you stop a lawyer from drowning?
Answer: Take your foot off his head.
Question: What do you get when you cross The Godfather with a lawyer?
Answer: An offer you can't understand.
We've all heard lawyer jokes over the course of our lives and nearly all of them picture lawyers as incoherent, evil, sub-human, dregs of society who are better off dead than alive. In general, our society seems to hold a general disdain for the profession, and from historical precedence they have good reason for it. Lawyer's will destroy families and towns with a single lawsuit just to improve their reputation. When they can't win, they delay until you can't afford to pay your own lawyer anymore, at which point they may counter-sue your broke ass just because they can and they know you are unequipped to properly defend yourself. If evidence proves them wrong they will not drop charges or admit defeat and move on, instead they try to get that evidence thrown out of court so they have a chance to win.
In short, lawyers come from a field where being right or making sure the morally or legally correct side wins, is never even a consideration. They come from a profession where the only goal is to win the argument. Playing on emotions, lying, misrepresenting, intentional misinterpretation, omission, and collusion are just a few of the invaluable resources in just about every lawyer's arsenal. When somebody calls lawyers on these things, nobody ever disputes them. Lawyers themselves are pretty cynical about the profession and pretty openly bash their own. I am here to ask one simple question, "Why do we keep electing lawyers to run our country?"
Currently, 148 members of the House of Representatives and 52 Senators list 'law' as their profession. 167 Reps and 55 Senators hold law degrees, accounting for about 41.5% of our legislature. This doesn't count our lawyer president, or his lawyer vice-president, or the lawyer filled Supreme Court. In other words, the most reviled profession in the world has been given the reigns of power.
Why does this matter? Because only from a lawyer do we get the outrageous crap we've heard from our leaders in recent years. From lawyers we get "that depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." From lawyers we get claims that air raids on Libyan targets don't count as hostilities as long as we don't send in ground troops. We have seen senators give audaciously wrong and misleading statistics on the floor of congress, ultimately walked back by claims that the statement "wasn't meant to be factual." Supreme Court justices have justified torture claiming that the constitution bans 'cruel and unusual PUNISHMENT' therefore if the torture isn't being used as punishment, it is okay. (BTW, isn't lying to Congress supposed to be a crime Senator Kyl? I guess the professional courtesy sharks extend to lawyers is one lawyers extend to one another as well)
It was lawyers that decided that corporations have the same rights of speech as people. It is lawyers that take pride in knowingly sending innocent men to prison or to their deaths, the more obvious his innocence the better they feel about themselves.
What we need instead are those who bring something unique to the debate rather than 535 people with about half a dozen different professions. A couple lawyers isn't terrible, but we should also have doctors and nurses. We should have teachers, cops, fire fighters, veterans, and social workers. We should have scientists, economists, ecologists, astronauts, and historical experts serving and bringing their expertise to the Halls. We should have comedians, journalists, whistle-blowers, and outsiders with access and ability to garner media attention to keep the others honest.
We need those that know the ins and outs of what they're charged with regulating rather than putting Ted Stevens in charge of the internet simply because he has seniority. We need public figures that can be positive role models rather than relying on professional athletes and the cast of Jersey Shore to serve that purpose. We need to encourage study in math and the sciences and we need leaders to promote them and understand their values first hand.
More than anything we need those that can inspire us to build for the future rather than get bogged down in the arguments of yesterday. We need to look towards leadership from Neil deGrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking; not from Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.