The Law is Philosophy that matters:

when it comes down to deciding who has to be stopped and who has to be punished, things are not so simple. Law is about how we have to come to a consensus about what are the best rules for insuring reasonably stable and predictable futures for ourselves. (How can I get anything done if I don’t know that my stuff is going to be in my house when I get home?)

Philosophy that matters because the consensus says so and will mess you up if you don’t do as they say and they find out.

Deciding who has to be stopped = control (due to fear of whomever one believes requires stopping.)

Punishment = attempts to control the feared by negative reinforcement or violence.

Consensus = Tyranny of the majority and usually an ad populum fallacy = control by a larger group.

Rules = codified control.

Stable & predictable futures = attempt to control subjunctive abstract concepts.

I don’t know my stuff is going to be there = Fear of lack of control, one never knows whether or not one’s stuff will be there.

Pattern recognition: If the statute is to be understood by all then why is it couched in legalese? This ensures that most persons who run afoul of the codified controls need a lawyer to manipulate the semantics. The only laws that are just are: Do not physically harm another and Do not usurp another’s property.

Law IS about control and those who enforce it or attracted to it are both control freaks and fearful of anarchy. No, my wife of 31 years agrees with my position vis-à-vis the law and I have not yet had to avail myself of a lawyer nor have I had a problem with any (except philosophically if one flouts either of the 2 laws above to the benefit of the majority and the detriment of an individual.

The Law is hard: The spirit of the law is easy; it’s only hard due to the arcane language and contradictory precedents.

You do not learn the law in law school. You learn how to think.

It’s my experience that schools rarely teach critical thinking anymore, perhaps some law schools are different but I have no way of determining whether or not that is the case.

One learns how think like a semanticist, sophist, and how best to control whatever legal situation benefits a client. It’s almost never altruistic and all about controlling one’s fears. Why else would one place the study of such an inherently flawed and inequitable system above one’s family and life? What is the real motivation? You say the world is screwed up and you want to change it. That’s because you believe the world is out of control and you figure your best shot of controlling it is from the inside as a lawyer???

The most effective means one has to change the world is to change one’s worldview as the “world” is merely one’s mental construct.

Peace,

Burt

You can blather on all day about metaphysics, but when it comes down to deciding who has to be stopped and who has to be punished, things are not so simple. Law is about how we have to come to a consensus about what are the best rules for insuring reasonably stable and predictable futures for ourselves. (How can I get anything done if I don’t know that my stuff is going to be in my house when I get home?)

Law is: pattern recognition

Statute must be understandable by the people who follow it. The law must, superficially, sort people into buckets, because it is a mechanical description of a binary partition; approved behavior versus unacceptable behavior. If the description is too vague, it will not effectively delineate the desired behavior. If the description is too specific, too lengthy, it will lack clarity and the typical person won’t be able to follow it. If all of this sounds cold and impersonal, it is. That’s why we have lawyers and judges, since they can look beyond the mechanics to the philosophical intent behind the laws.

Law is: not about being a control freak.

No offense, Burt, but did your ex-wife’s lawyer take you for a lot of money or something?

Law is: hard

You do not learn the law in law school. You learn how to think. You are expected to learn the law on your own time. It is a fantastic experience, but you can expect to miss out on a lot of your real life as you go through the process. Say goodbye to your wife and kids for at least three years.

Perhaps, Bob, you have an innate interest in taking things apart to see how they work. Law school is all about that. We live in a complicated world where we are often forced to submit to the wishes of others.

For my own part, I finally started taking an interest in the world around me and how screwed up it was. I figured that if anyone was going to change the system, it would have to be an inside job.

-bruce

I was forced to pick the most viable candidate whom I believed was ideologically closest to me. (My ideal choice of all the contenders was Kucinich but he had the proverbial snowball’s chance.)

Obama is not as liberal as I would have liked but given Hillary’s hawkish rhetoric and penchant for revisionism, I preferred him but would have taken either.

His Afghanistan surge and his bellicose attitude toward going into Afghanistan in the 1st place do not comport with my philosophy but he is far better intellectually and tempermentally IMO than Bush, McCain or Palin (especiallyBush & Palin.)

I believe he is the right person at this time to mend the damage done to our image by the former administrations, his economic policies notwithstanding and hope that the SCOTUS will be the recipient of several empathetic, liberal & intellectually honest justices in the near future.

@David:

Wow, David take umbrage much?

Typical response from a control freak law student (ever wonder why lawyers are generally reviled?) – just kidding. Obviously when one opines about human motivations and predilections one must generalize (even specificity except in the most rudimentary of cases barely suffices when applied to an individual.)

I do not know Bob and my impressions of him stem from what I surmise by reading his blog which I find well written and often enjoy (and the BobG whose musings occupy a tiny corner of my consciousness is wholly my creation and may or may not resemble your image of him and especially his self image. I have gleaned from his written statements that he likes rules and note he has arranged his existence to pursue wonts which require following them. When he muses in print regarding the nature of coincidence and asks for plausible explanation for the synchronicity vis-à-vis his close friends and their more than passing interest in a legal career – I offered an analysis based on opinion and the obvious.

I maintain in general people who derive comfort from having an imposed structure and operating within its confines do so because they are uncomfortable with uncertainty and unpredictability. This is due to FEAR which is probably the most powerful emotion that exists in sentient beings. So we come to the LAW which exists because people fear that other people will take advantage of them and so seek to mitigate the effects by threat of violence by consensus or fiat. A well known psychological generality is the concept of projection, i.e., external perceptions are manifestations of internal beliefs which is why I assert that it is fear of loss of control that makes people seek solace in defined proscriptions. Inculcated Judeo-Christian mores (Mosaic Law) is a culprit responsible for a large percentage of the world’s population’s belief in law.

It is my belief that generally lawyers are semanticists and skilled in fallacious formulation for the purpose of suasion and that software engineers like the structured environment of computer programming and the concomitant absolute power that may be wielded but not all are of that bent.

I notice you are a Boston musician as I once was (Berklee ’73 – keyboards, guitar.) I play jazz and like the comparative freedom from the tyranny of structure (keeping mostly within the bar lines but not always and harmonic structure? A mere suggestion once the head is done.) If you like jazz guitar – I recommend going to see David “Fuze” Fiuczynski – do you know him? He will be at Sculler’s on May 23 with Hiromi – (you won’t be disappointed.)

If you have any more carps on generalities please specify. I observe human behavior and try to formulate meta-explanations which may account for the individually eclectic and herd responses inherent within.

@Zorak:

Would you care to elaborate on your assertion of ludicrousity?

I agree that delineation into groups (buckets in your parlance) seems to be the end result of my meta-analysis but that is only for ease of identifying local tendencies within whatever group (pick one) is being discussed. Individuals, are members of many sets (in the Cantor sense,) and are impossible to pigeonhole due to their unique nature. I subscribe to the theory that we are all solipsists and reality is a personal manifestation, so in my belief system I choose which buckets to populate with which ilk and can shuffle them at will when piqued.

BTW: The ironic thing about irony is that it isn’t.

Peace,

Burt

I think it would be more accurate to say that software programming and law both involve a good deal of interest in applied logic.

p.s. chalk me up as another software engineer who flirted with becoming a lawyer.