Whatever the truth of those allegations a larger question looms. That is the abundance of lawyers in our society and the disproportionate effect of the legal mindset upon our society and government.

Michigan has more than 40,000 licensed attorneys, and each year the law schools graduate more. Where will they find work? And what is the correlation between this abundance of lawyers, the number of frivolous lawsuits and the public’s increasing distrust of lawyers and government?

Consider the current Congress (112^th) of the United States. There are 148 lawyers serving in the House and 52 lawyers serving in the Senate. By comparison there are 15 medical doctors serving in House and 2 in the Senate. In the House there is 1 physicist, 6 engineers and 17 farmers. So whose professional influence and approach to problem solving is likely to dominate?

Much of the political circus in Washington owes its mediocrity, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, waste and lack of imagination to an entrenched legal mindset with its emphasis upon winning. The interminable arguments and legal maneuverings too often negate meaningful, substantive, timely, and effective action and have brought our country to its economic and cultural knees.

Our adversarial legal system teaches that the client, no matter how reprehensible he, she or it may be, is entitled to the best legal representation. So when lawyers are elected to public office they come predisposed to framing every issue as a contest—as something to be argued and won. The problem is that the greater public good isn’t easily identified or defined as a client or contest. Nor can it lobby for itself or sign checks.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2011

NOTE: Columnist John Schneider published portions of this piece in his blog in the Lansing State Journal. Responses to the remarks may be seen here.

Dante was wrong. Hell is a morass of lanes and ramps, of mesas, plains and canyons of concrete, where millions of of steel and fiberglass capsules hurtle at, around and sometimes into each other at speeds exceeding 70 miles per hour. These vehicles are aimed and guided by all kinds of drivers including the: halt, lame, mad, maniacal, idiotic, naive, frightened, stupid, homicidal, suicidal, timid, impatient, angry, oblivious, preoccupied, intoxicated, patient, considerate, kind, brutal, and distracted.

Driving along the John Lodge in Detroit, or some similar conduit of madness, I wonder about the driver who rips in front of me from three lanes over, sliding his Accura through the gaps between vehicles with less than 10 inches to spare—is she a Ph.D in astrophysics? Is he a graduate of Harvard law school? Is she a highly respected Oncologist or just a clerk at Home Depot? Then I imagine this person after the pile up, their life devastated or terminated by a momentary hesitation or miscalculation that turned their $45,000 plus social networking, communications and entertainment center on wheels into a blood spattered mass of jagged steel, shattered glass, and flame—a shredder that sliced and diced them like carrots without regard to their personal values, dreams, goals, purposes and importance and left them as matter to be shoveled and hosed off the pavement like smashed watermelons.

This we call progress and civilization. It is inevitable we say. The sacrifice of some for the many is an acceptable cost. So in the name of convenience, freedom, status and the American Way, we encourage our best, brightest and innocent to share the highways with dim wits, drunks and lunatics. And too often they are one and the same.

So the descansos lining our roads and highways are increasingly prominent and more numerous than the Golden Arches and the future for trauma centers, rehabilitation clinics and funeral homes seems brighter than ever.

Bailout Express © 2011 Michael Maurer Smith

The American Bankers Indiscriminate Spending Alliance (BISA) now offers this versatile and convenient card to all its members. Smart bankers never leave home without one, and that’s why they still have homes. If you are a banker get yours today and everyday. Call your favorite congressperson, senator or lobbyist to apply. Why wait? You could be spending so much more.

Let's Revisit School (from an earlier Tea Party protest) © 2009 Michael M. Smith

From my office window I can see Michigan’s State Capitol building. On most workdays, during the spring and summer, there are organized demonstrations on the capitol lawn, each addressing a particular issue or grievance.

Today’s demonstration (24 June 2010) was huge. It was the Michigan Education Association and they were well organized—several thousand of them in coordinated tee-shirts. They arrived by the busload. Large circus style tents covered the grounds and as a mark of just how organized this demonstration was there were no less than 10 porta-potties on the southside sidewalk and behind the capitol sat 5 state police cruisers.

A couple of weeks ago it was the motorcyclists protesting the Michigan law that requires them to wear helmets. I appreciate their logic. If they prefer to have their unprotected heads smash the concrete at sixty miles an hour what’s the point of government trying to protect them?

Anyway, my point here is not about the MEA or helmet laws, it’s about demonstrations. Do they accomplish anything other than making the demonstrators feel better? I doubt it. As I said I see them almost every working day.  And they follow the same pattern. Someone, or several someones, mount the capitol steps and deliver righteous messages to the assembled believers. At key moments the demonstrators hoot, cheer, clap and wave their signs in the air. But rarely do the legislators or governor come out to meet the crowd—unless they are in the midst of a reelection campaign. Mostly, it’s the demonstrators demonstrating for themselves and the amusement of the lunch crowd. It’s purely theater and most of it amateur.

In his TED video, Political Change with Pen and Paper, Omar Ahmad claims the most effective way to get the attention of legislators is to write them letters—handwritten. When they receive thousands of hand written letters they pay attention. However, when they look out their windows and see signs and placards bobbing up and down, it’s just another day at work. Letters are personal. Bobbing signs are anonymous.

It takes tremendous energy and money to move tens, hundreds and even thousands of people to converge on a single location, there to vent their frustrations and express their views—particularly when tomorrow there will be yet another performance by another group and the day after that another. And to what avail? Inside the walls of government the deals are made based upon political and personal expedience and favoritism. If bricks and bullets aren’t coming through the windows the demonstrations outside are of no more concern than the day’s weather.

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith