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The Majesty of the Law

by Attorney Solon Thersites submitted 9/10

The problems and injustices caused by resolution of social and personal disputes through trial by combat, physical conflict, or war are obvious to even the most casual observers of life or history. Therefore, throughout history, by both ancients and moderns, there have been attempts to establish an independent arbitrator, 'the law', to supposedly rationally resolve disputes among individuals or social groups in order to maintain social order. For modern Western Civilization, the law is now advocated as the solution for all social instability, for many economic ills, and has become essentially the new dominant religion of the 21st Century. Just as the injustices and harm of trial by combat are obvious, the injustices of the law go to the other extreme of being hidden and unknown to even its most intense inquisitors; are intentionally disguised and glossed over by its adherents, as with any religion; but are just as potentially destructive to both the spirit of the individual and to the stability and economics of society. Unless such unrecognized inherent injustices are recognized and confronted, resolution of disputes by law eventually will be just as destructive to civilization and the spirit of democracy as any war can be.

The present method of appointing, electing, or whatever trial judges is analogous to randomly picking someone off the street to have them referee an NBA basketball game. No matter how good intentioned, most essentially have no idea what is going on but they know that every now and then they have to make a call and thus arbitrarily do so against random players or against individuals who have somehow disrespected them. Even the most intelligent have very little preparation or understanding of their job, and all of them in order to get either appointed or elected to any type of judgeship must be and must remain a politician at heart and an apologist for the legal system as a secular religion. They base their legal career on making no enemies and the right kind and amount of friends. Anyone who actually believes in something and aggressively advocated such during their legal career would make too many enemies to ever get appointed to a judgeship. Once they are appointed or elected as judges, they remain politicians: foe to those that threaten their power, friend to those that enhance it. The concept that giving life tenure to such individuals as is done in the federal system and in many state systems will allow them to make the tough decisions is nonsense and not in anyway supported by evidence. In fact, life tenure simply causes them to be further set in their ways and beliefs by such absolute power making them accountable to no one nor to any idea other then preservation of their power. As any honest experienced trial attorney knows, trial judges just like juries make decisions based on their sympathy and empathy through their ideas of right and wrong. Even if trial judges have an idea of what may be written as law, their political instincts control their acts and decisions.

On the trial court level at least, we can give judges the benefit of a doubt and say that lies, distortions, and wrong decisions issued by them are simply the result of good intentions gone bad under the stress of having to make quick decisions of the complicated issues presented to them. On the appellate level, the situation is much worse. Appellate judges routinely, knowingly, and intentionally issue decisions containing cold-blooded lies. They are essentially a secular college of cardinals doing whatever they think necessary to maintain the facade of the religion of law. It is a disgrace that as you supposedly go up in the legal hierarchy, from municipal/district court, through superior court, and then into the 'great legal minds' of the Supremes, that the judges become more dishonest, unethical, and outright liars and con-artists. Regardless of the propaganda, though the rich and powerful may lose some battles in the legal system, they will always, without doubt, win the war eventually. Liberal or conservative, judges are all part of the same religion, union, or whatever you want to call the powers-that-be.

The legal system survives because it is seen as the only viable alternative to resolution by conflict and somehow it has so far been smart enough to take advantage of this Western view and its inherent need for social order and stability. The civil rights moment of the 60's is a perfect example. By the 1960's the legal system had for over a century formally maintained legally, established discrimination of various classes of individuals. As racial or ethnic minorities and other disenfranchised obtained previously unknown economic prosperity and power post World War II, civil disobedience and violent protest against such formal, legally maintained discrimination fermented and finally surfaced in the 60's. The United States in the 60's found itself with internally grown terrorists arguing, fighting, and dying for revolution; with many of its people attacking and burning government buildings, killing judicial officials, refusing and obstructing court orders; and with preached and practiced violation of law and violent rebellion against government throughout society. Remember Attica! Attica! And so forth. In response to this violent threat to social order and its power, the legal system started to create civil rights and constitutional protections for the disenfranchised and to break down the formal substantive and procedural legal formalities that kept people disenfranchised. However, to hear judges and the powers-that-be of the legal system talk today, you would have the impression that somehow the legal system voluntarily and peacefully somehow changed the world by creating equal rights for all under the law! These people are either ignorant, delusional, or intentional revisionists of history for the benefit of 'the law.' Such is especially true of the Black, African-American, Hispanic, Women, and whatever groups that consider themselves to be judges from a 'minority group.' Such minorities have a substantial representation in the ranks of the judiciary now because of the Honored Dead who violently protested against the established power system that excluded such representation in the past. However, as any experienced trial attorney knows, such judges from 'minority' groups are routinely the most conservative, most pro-government, most pro-big business, and most pro-status-quo of any judges because they somehow have been indoctrinated into believing that the 'majesty of the law' was their savior and the savior of their people. The law is amazing in its ability to maintain this delusion for the benefit of its power.

However, as history shows, it will not be able to maintain this delusion forever with changing material and economic times. It is not clear how the surreptitious injustices of the legal system will resolve itself. Eventually, a very rich and powerful individual or organization will lose a battle in the legal system and make sure that they win the war by completely eliminating any facade of egalitarianism: no more jury trials, losers pay attorney fees and costs to the winner, eliminate any possibility of punitive damages, all lost cases are 'frivolous', and whatever. If society is wealthy enough, no one will care since the middle class and lower class cannot afford the legal system anyway for the majority of their problems so why fight to protect it or to prevent its dissolution. On the other hand, the economy may get so bad that the middle and working class will give up on the legal system in which they cannot afford to get involved anyway for resolution of their problems and will turn to the Old School alternatives: religion, family, vendettas, or a strong executive or charismatic leader to stop the nonsense. This is the way it matters have worked themselves out through some parts of history, the way it worked in the German and the Fascist systems of the mid-20th Century, and there is no reason why such results cannot return if economic times get bad enough as they did in Germany so that people no longer want to play the 'majesty of the law' game. In an attempt to avoid this, law schools and legal 'scholars' should start doing for once in their history real scholarship by first admitting the inherent injustice of any formal system of justice and to then look for alternatives and hopes for resolving such inherent injustices as they continually develop and evolve. Not much chance of such ever occurring because only politically correct ideas foster in law school not creative ideas for actually solving real life problems such as: why not explore letting ecclesiastical courts act as arbitrators when the litigants are religious; or exploring the expansion of the jury system so that juries can make legal as well as factual decisions, that is allowing them not only to make factual decisions but like judges to also in particular cases overrule the law when it considers the law to be unfair and unjust just as judges do? Democracy is becoming closed off to anyone that cannot afford a lobbyist, expanding the powers of a jury will allow individuals to least at some point in their life to have an actual say in the development of society and democracy and thus respect it.