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C00002 00002	GRUMBLES ABOUT THE PRESENT AMERICAN STATE OF MIND
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GRUMBLES ABOUT THE PRESENT AMERICAN STATE OF MIND

1. The legal mind

2. The bureaucratic mind.

3. Pessimism and Cynicism

4. reference to docdil.ess

5. the subservience of scientists and engineers
to intellectual trends.
Alas, there are not two cultures.

6. The english major and the bureaucrat.  The english major
and the advertising man.

7. Freud and Marx and Watson.

8. American intellectual dominance of world culture.

9. Man is vile.

1. The legal mind.

	The environmental movement and the left are converting
many decision making processes that used to be administrative
into adversary proceedings.  In this, they are abetted by
the middle aged lawyers that constitute the courts and
the legislatures.  The reasoning behind it is that objective
decision making is a myth and that there are always interests
behind each way of making a decision and that it is better to get
these opposed interests in the open.  Generally, this is
associated with a view that there are public interests and private
interests that are generally opposed in a decision and that
the purpose of the adversary proceeding is to give the public
interest a better chance.

	An important effect of this tendency is to make
every proceeding into a legal proceeding dominated by the skills
and attitudes of lawyers.  Lawyers have the following attitudes
that often have unfortunate consequences:

	1. My client right or wrong.  The responsibility of
the lawyer is to make the best possible case for his client.  If
he omits relevant facts or makes arguments he knows to be weak
or appeals to principles he knows would be disastrous if
generally applied this is ok, because there is another
lawyer on the other side and it is his responsibility
to raise arguments in the other direction.

	2. Every issue has two sides.  The tendency to
see problems in terms of issues between groups often leads
to unnecessary conflict.

	3. Delay is a privileged tactic.  When a side can gain
by delay, it may raise irrelevant issues for this purpose, and
judges ought to err on the side of delay.

	4. Legal procedure is more important than substance.  A
side deserves to lose if it makes a procedural error, even
if it is correct about the main issue.  This cancer starts
in criminal law, but has extended to all kinds of issues
e.g. the Alaska pipeline should be delayed if an i hasn't been
dotted in the Environmental Impact Statement.

	5. It is more important to avoid blame than to accomplish
anything.

	6. In any decision making proceeding, it is ok to pursue
self interest unrestrictedly and bloody-mindedly.  A newspaper
should always oppose an increase in postal rates.

	What if anything can be done to curb the legal mind?

	1. Preaching may do some good.  No-one has
criticized lawyers as a group in some time and they may
not be totally immune yet.

	2. Attack on some of their more selfish monopoly positions.
E.g. an initiative to rewrite the inheritance laws that permit
lawyers to take tribute.

	3. Build an awareness of lawyer's sins among other
groups.