Amen! Well spoken, Tim. Last night I saw the Saferstein remarks you mention. I think they hit the local California TV stations before being picked up by CNN. I fully agree that PC is *really* getting out of hand if lawyers are now to be considered one of the downtrodden minority groups. Saferstein doesn't seem to understand the serious role satire plays in actually *preventing* violence in our society. Lawyers and politicians (lawyers being the larval stage of the latter) hold a tremendous amount of power over the rest of us. Satire (including jokes, political cartoons and the like) might not actually do much to lessen that power, but it does give the rest of us a chance to vent some of the resentment that might otherwise build into violence in more people. And of course there is satire's unique selectivity. It's hard to satirize somebody who doesn't deserve it. But a hypocritical lawyer or a politician with a bloated ego... well, I don't think bullets ever get any more magic than this. *They* may still believe in their own overriding self-importance, but thanks to satire, the rest of us don't have to! The real irony of trying to ban "lawyer bashing" is that some of the best (most critical) lawyer jokes are told by the lawyers themselves! So maybe we *should* pass a law against it. What better way to get more lawyers off the street and where they belong? (Short of cloning some more T. Rexes, of course...was there also applause in your theater during that scene?) Phil
Phil writes:
Last night I saw the Saferstein remarks you mention. I think they hit the local California TV stations before being picked up by CNN. I fully agree that PC is *really* getting out of hand if lawyers are now to be considered one of the downtrodden minority groups.
If I were to set out to deliberate make lawyers look even sillier than they look already, I couldn't imagine a better place to start than to make a remark like Saferstein's "hate crimes" comment. --Mike
participants (2)
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karn@qualcomm.com
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Mike Godwin