Wednesday 26 May 2010

Lawyers - the scourge of our time


In the year 8 at the time of the Roman Emperor Augustus, Germanic tribes destroyed three Roman legions during a battle that lasted several days. Those tribal people must have had a red-hot hatred against lawyers, called "legal pleaders" at that time. Lucius Annaeus Florus tells the story thus: "They sewed up his mouth after first cutting out his tongue, shouting: at last, you viper, you have ceased to hiss".

Sorry to say that but I love that story. Two thousand years have passed but the quality of those millions of "legal pleaders" has not improved.


Do you believe in God? - Depends on the client

Nearly all Western parliaments are swamped with lawyers of all kind. Due to their efforts, nearly everything is complicated, they are churning out laws, orders, edicts, rulings, regulations.

Generally ambiguous, those laws have the merit to keep busy and well paid that army of legal experts, feeding on the people like leeches.



As to me, I cannot change this situation. But at least I have made a solemn private oath never to vote for anyone who has a legal profession. There are hands you cannot cut off but at least nobody can oblige you to kiss it.

I have been told that in the USA lawyers sometimes contact people after an operation just to find out if there is a possibility to sue someone for money. We are not yet there but will have the same situation within the next ten years.





Right now there is a shortage of engineers and scientists in many Western countries. On the other hand, students of law are aplenty, studying to become parasites of their own and hoping to haul it in big.

A country functioning without rule of Law and security makes life a misery for everybody with the exception of some strongmen. But this cancer-like proliferation of litigations could well be our undoing.

Behind this big screen of legal safeguards lurks the real lawlessness. Just listen to the news.