The problem isn't how low the American people have sunk, but how low the professional class has plumbed, especially the law.
"It is lawyers who run our civilization for us - our governments, our businesses, our private lives... We cannot buy a home or rent an apartment, we cannot get married or try to get divorced, we cannot leave our property to our children without calling on the lawyers to guide us. To guide us, incidentally, through a maze of confusing gestures and formalities that lawyers have created... The legal trade, in short, is nothing but a high-class racket. - Fred Rodell, Professor of Law, Yale University, Woe Unto You, Lawyers.
"Lawyers tend to take their unique life view about lying into other occupations - particularly politics, the media, and business. In these areas, dissimulation tends to serve them well as they selectively lead or mislead voters, viewers, regulators, readers, customers, etc. Their obvious success often causes nonlawyers in these fields to imitate their questionable behavior patterns." - "Lawyers in Other Occupations & Government," Legal Ethics and Reform
"In the late 1940s, there was one lawyer for every 790 people, according to national figures. By early 1990, that number had jumped to one lawyer for every 320 people... Everyone must know at least one lawyer in Tallahassee. Leon County claims one lawyer for every 93 residents. In Jacksonville and surrounding Duval County, there is one lawyer per every 354 residents. At the other end of the coast in Dade County, there is a lawyer for every 197 residents." - Denny Fraser, What to do with Too Many Lawyers?
I would postulate the depth and course of dissimulative behavior undermining moral rectitude in America is directly proportional to the number of lawyers per population over time.
"dis-sim-u-late \ vt : to hide under a false appearance : DISSEMBLE ~ vi : to engage in dissembling - dis-sim-u-la- tion - dis-sim-u-la-tive ...
Jim |
