Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Eating Lawyers is good for you

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 07:13:11 -0400

Eating Lawyers is good for you
By Andrew Orlowski
Posted: 19/06/2003 at 18:39 GMT

Letters Re: Lawyers must be culled like rabbits - Nokia VP

Nokia's Erik Anderson has a cure for lawyer-infestation. You have
your own suggestions for dealing with America's parasites, and
here are the highlights.

In your Reg article you mention: "The trouble is no one is
eating the lawyers"

Two thoughts spring to mind, the first is that would anyone
find a lawyer appetising (except sharks, but they don't eat
lawyers due to professional courtesy) and the second is that
perhaps I shouldn't examine the contents of my next burger
too closely.

Dave Hough

Andrew-

I was nodding off reading the story of Erik Anderson of Nokia, and
his claims that attorneys are strangling Americans in their sleep,
until I read the final paragraph:

"No one is eating the regulators, and they spread like rabbits. A
Ronald Reagan only comes along every fifty years or so. The trouble
is no one is eating the lawyers."

Wot? We'll have to wait another 30 years to have some bullshit artist
claiming to reign in regulation in America, while expanding the realm
of his big-buck brethren? I think not!

King George I and King George II were elected with the same
'mandate' (actually, Al Gore had the mandate, King George had the
Supremes- Supremes smother scissors, I believe). None of these
twits have done anything that they claimed they would do.

No doubt the King's friends include men (Lawyers all, Erik!) made
rich by the dividing of the spectrum amongst the CDMA, GSM,
TDMA and IDEN, and a little of that gold has trickled down into the
King's coffers, in the only example of Trickle Down Economics to
have ever found to have worked.

Yes, having one phone type would be better for the American public.
So what? Having more then five companies own ever damned
newspaper, radio and television in America would be better for the
American public as well, but in the words of Michael Powell
(paraphrased), so fucking what? Within the framework of what's left
of the Republic, these positions are meaningless, unless the friends
of the King (Lawyers again, Erik!) will make more money from the
transition.

Get with the program, Mr. Anderson!

David A Stever
in St. Paul, Minnesota

The over-lawyered point made by Nokia's Erik Anderson has to
strike a chord with everyone.

But taking the "cull like rabbits" analogy a bit further and we could
consider the various approaches taken in Australia for rabbit
control. Myxomatosis didn't last too long and the Calicivirus was
useful, but I'm thinking more of the rabbit-proof fence which stretches
across great swathes of Western Australia.

I'm just wondering what form a "Lawyer-proof fence" could take?
Maybe a better use for the image-recognition systems would be to
flag and detain anyone wearing a striped shirt and suspenders?
(Now that really would be Homeland Security).

Perhaps the Bar exam could be used to "bar" someone from
speaking in a civil case? (I appreciate that lawyers do have their
uses in criminal cases).

These are just the musings (rantings?) of a recent arrival
(non-immigrant) completely bewildered by the amount of rules in an
essentially anti-regulation country. When the only method to ensure
some level of product or process safety is the threat of a massive
legal settlement, the result is a prohibition of any and all activity
which could conceivably result in some form of litigation. Thus, I
cannot go for a swim in a lake in a state park unless there is a
life-guard on duty and I stay within the 100ft square roped off area in
case I hurt myself and sue the state government. I cannot trim the
hedges around my apartment because the condominium
association does not carry liability insurance for residents
performing maintenance.

Christmas, sorry Holiday, decorations are strictly proscribed not to
make sure there is nothing which might offend, but to make sure
there is nothing which could be used as the basis for a lawsuit.

Americans pride themselves on their freedoms and fight tooth and
nail against government encroachment of these freedoms - and yet
many everyday activities are far more bound with rules and
regulations than in Europe. (Try New Year's Eve in the Town Hall
Square in Copenhagen for an idea of what kind of fireworks are
legal in "over-regulated" Denmark!) This not to make life safer or
better, but the result of a legal system geared to punitive damages
as a way to direct individual and corporate behaviour.

I'm not bashing Americans here, I'm not really bashing lawyers
because they are just doing what we all do and exploiting the system
in which they operate, but I think we have to be just as aware of the
effects of "de-regulation" as we are of "over-regulation".

Rob Potter

[Letters may be edited to remove the boring bits. Please note,
Mr J.Cordesman, that by the time I had finished editing your
explanation of "undergraduate microeconomics", there was
nothing left to publish]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/35/31320.html

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