CB, I was intrigued by your comment and have been meaning to get back to it: <I've never understood why people resent lawyers using legalese, but don't resent mathematicians using mathese, doctors using medicalese, philosophers using philosopherese, theologians using religionese, economists using economistese, and so forth.>
CB, Your bow got longer as you lengthened the list. Theologians catch a lot of flak from those outside their own enclave but are generally looked on as harmless superstitious wackoes. Economists leave people bemused but relatively unworried as they see economists as peculiar but harmless mystics who try to decipher the music of the markets. Philosophers annoy people more because of their pretensions but are usually university-funded oddities who try to figure out whether they are real, deny they are real, but insist to other people that they know what the heck they are saying and the others should go along with their nihilistic 'I am not' ideas. They can usually be ignored.
Mathematicians, doctors and engineers are usually looked on as boring but genuine people performing their mechanical tasks. Their jargon is ignored and they are left to their own devices. Scientific jargon gets up a lot of noses because people try to hold 'I'm a greenie' positions while in deep ignorance of science and how the greenhouse effect causes the ozone layer and acid rain. Doctors can be annoying with a supercilious attitude and their use of jargon to avoid ignorant questions to save them time and let them get on with it.
But lawyers! They are essentially an amoral kleptocracy and dominance hierarchy who have heard of ethics and can quote any number of laws about ethics and why people should not say lawyers are crooks but are proud of the fact that the law is amoral and ethics do not enter into their realm. They retain a closed shop and charge a fortune to attack us and simultaneously defend us, all wrapped up in reams of legalistic jargon.
"estoppel" means "I am a lawyer and I just used a fancy word and that is going to cost you another $1,000 which will stop you being happy, will make you red behind the eyes with anger at the greed, will paralyze you in ignorance and will probably end with you befuddled in gaol".
"Proximate cause" means "The event was nothing whatsoever to do with a volitional act on your part but because you have got money, we are going to estop your mens rea ex parte. You are an ultra vires litigant. You shall pay our client [and us] $31,415,923."
Everyone knows lawyers don't have a clue what the law is so we know that nobody else can possibly have a clue. Lawyers take opposite sides of the same events as a matter of course [which they wouldn't need to do if it was clear]. Judges struggle with the jargon [months and years after the lawyers have figured it out enough to take it before a judge]. The judges eventually come up with some interpretation of the jargon. Which is reversed on appeal. Which is reversed on up the line to the Supreme Court who decide the issue by voting! They really do vote! Can you imagine engineers voting on whether a building is strong enough or voting on whether a big or small satellite will be pulled out of orbit? Meanwhile, the person being jargoned by these experts who take years to figure out some jargon and can't agree with each other, is expected to carry around in their heads all the legalese so that each action they take or estoppel from taking during the day complies with this infinite complexity of jargonistic verbiage. No human can do that because the experts [the judges] can't do it and have to vote to decide.
Lawyer jargon is held in contempt because everyone knows lawyers love a fight for the sake of it, to fill their egos and their pockets. They use arcane muck to tie people up in knots. People know each piece of jargon is intended to cost them a lot of money. They know the legal business is endlessly expansionary [until the money runs out and then there is not a lawyer to be seen for miles].
They know that lawyers will argue that they did NOT have sexual relations [apparently because sex by definition is the act of reproduction and the context of their bodies precluded formation of a zygote]. Depending of course on your definition of 'is'. People know that lawyers will argue black and blue that big satellites hang on to earth really tightly so LEOs are small and that they see every issue as an argument to be won [usually for pecuniary gain] rather than a truth to be derived.
Lawyers see the world not through objective eyes or ethical eyes or moral eyes, not with goodwill, affection and co-operative synergy as the aim. They see the world as a cynical opportunist's paradise. An Alice In Wonderland world where words mean what you want them to mean and are to be turned to profit in a cynical targeting to avoid responsibility, tie people up and win the contest. People know this through bitter experience. It is not the purpose of the law to establish morals or ethics. It is to tie people up in jargon with a view to forming contracts and to force behavioural patterns which comply with judicial edict.
However, I consider this a very necessary expertise.
Because, if anyone thinks lawyers with their jargon are unethical, amoral, mercenary and venal, they should see the people who are out there in the public realm, waiting to steal, lie, breach contracts, good faith, trust, love and destroy hope. I like to have nice, legally binding contracts when dealing with people who I can't trust implicitly. I like countries based on law. It's a strength of the USA and a major reason why I invest there. Crooks go to gaol, tied up in a million pieces of jargon and paperwork.
Legal jargon costs a fortune CB and has nothing to do with morals or ethics. Normal people don't like that. Decisions of judges seem arbitrary. The jargon is something people can't understand and they can't afford a lawyer every time they see some jargon.
Lawyers get their money. Isn't that enough?
Mqurice |
