nin137

Nick's Journal
2007-10-24 21:10:47 (UTC)

Don't call me Practical!

if there's one thing i've learned, it's that the
"intelligentsia" that rule over the legal world hate nothing
more than being called pragmatists or practical. their
rules are not there to provide a quick fix for a societal
ill! no no no, they are there to lay down rules which will
stand the grand test of time, those that will stand as long
as the pyramids of egypt, while all those pesty little
grains of facts bounce off of them.
well i want to become a lawyer because...(cue any music that
makes me sound naive) "i want to help the world!!" yay!
i really do, i may be cynical, but i at least want to have
the fighting chance to push my own ideals through.
relax...they're good ideals.
like there's this one case...Shelley v. Kramer in which the
court held that a court's action in denying a plaintiff his
property (because he was black and the restrictive covenants
stated that the land couldn't be sold to black people) was
actually STATE action and therefore violated the 14th amendment.
i read that and wiped a tear from my eye, it was just one of
those cases that made me feel good about the type of job i'm
going into. sure maybe all i'll do is transactional law or
real estate deals, but at the very least i'll have the
ABILITY or the POTENTIALITY to effectuate some sort of
change in the world. or so i hope.
well my teacher was determined to convince use that Shelley
was a horrible case and completely near-sighted. i couldn't
stand him tearing apart a case that actually made me feel
great about my life decision and i vehemently fought him.
in the end he was just right. the law laid down was not
immutable, it wouldn't (and surely didn't) stand the test of
time and would eventually be swept under the rug of legal
history as a quaint fix but helplessly naive.
and that's what i hate about the legal profession. there
you are with the perfect chance to use the law for the best
of all purposes, but it turns out that you'd lose on
jurisdiction, standing, or various other prudential
doctrines so that your merits wouldn't even see the fucking
light of day.
it's fucking frustrating.
you know what else is fucking frustrating?
THAT WE'RE NOT BOYCOTTING THE 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS!!!
okay i don't want to sound like a god-forsaken whiny ass
bleeding heart liberal but lets get real here. there are
very few chances that a country will step up to anything.
we don't go into darfur because it's not useful, we "upped
our sanctions" against Burma for massacring their people,
but these are just little drops on a hot stone.
imagine what kind of message we'd send to the chinese about
their human rights violations if we boycotted the 2008
olympics...just imagine. that country is acting like the
ugly girl who just got asked out by the head quarterback to
go to the senior prom.
they are applying makeup, buying the most expensive dresses,
because THIS ball will mean everything...it'll show that
they've arrived.
so we're pissed and condemning their human rights violations
right?
well here's our message...we sit out of the olympics. it's
passive, and it would murder them!
christ.
or like how people don't make a bigger deal about combating
terrorism and other evil acts through simply divestiture
(i.e. taking money out of countries/companies which found
terrorism).
economic warfare is much more effective than physical at
certain times and definitely more sustainable over the
long-term for our nation (especially when it doesn't
directly affect commodities).
i guess i just want someone to do something or just more.
like what really pissed me off lately was this fucking
waffling by our country in condemning the turkish massacre
of armenians. it reminds me of the quote from hitler about
that massacre,
"Who still talks nowadays about the massacre of the Armenians?"
absolutely noone.




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