by Eric » Tue Apr 30, 2002 8:00 am
I’m not a lawyer thank God but since I do a lot of legal writing I get to read this kind of bullshit too often. Legal “reasoning” is pretty much like military “intelligence.”
Years ago, when I worked in a courthouse library, it was common knowledge that some of the district judges just told their law clerks what they wanted the decision to be and the clerk was supposed to find some legal pretext. The law is so complicated and open to subjective interpretation that it is more a system for justification than reasoning.
As for judges -- a lot of people have this elevated notion of judges. You’ll see polls where judges are ranked right at the top for respect, while lawyers and politicians are right at the bottom. But what’s a judge – first a lawyer, and worse, a lawyer who is a favorite of the local politicians who are the ones who have to either appoint judges or put them up for election. Besides which, lawyers and judges both are experts at only one thing – the law – their own byzantine game, which might have started out to bear some relation to the real world but now basically serves its own ends. So you get judges endlessly making decisions about important issues – of which they know fuck all. Of course, if you’re a judge then a “fact” is what you say it is.
So judicial decisions are often pure crap but part of the game is everyone has to pretend otherwise. Basing a decision on four video games is – well, using a less than reliable statistical sample. Wait, let’s rephrase that -- it’s just fucking moronic!
But, look – so what if you choose one game and it is just a blast one monster after another game? That isn’t expression? Give me a break. If the storyline in a novel or movie involved nothing more than trying to overcome an onslaught of monsters who would say there was *no* speech involved. The essence of literature, of storytelling, is conflict. Fighting for your life is the most basic form of conflict. Does reducing it to its simplest terms make it somehow not a story, not expressive of anything?
But enough of this – here’s the real opportunity. What you do is whip up a CD of text IF and then get yourself booked on the Today Show or something, while the issue’s hot, and then we’ll all be rich when you start selling the CD – even if only lawyers buy it. So, OK, my games suck too much to go on the CD but I get a cut for thinking of the idea.
I’m not a lawyer thank God but since I do a lot of legal writing I get to read this kind of bullshit too often. Legal “reasoning” is pretty much like military “intelligence.”
Years ago, when I worked in a courthouse library, it was common knowledge that some of the district judges just told their law clerks what they wanted the decision to be and the clerk was supposed to find some legal pretext. The law is so complicated and open to subjective interpretation that it is more a system for justification than reasoning.
As for judges -- a lot of people have this elevated notion of judges. You’ll see polls where judges are ranked right at the top for respect, while lawyers and politicians are right at the bottom. But what’s a judge – first a lawyer, and worse, a lawyer who is a favorite of the local politicians who are the ones who have to either appoint judges or put them up for election. Besides which, lawyers and judges both are experts at only one thing – the law – their own byzantine game, which might have started out to bear some relation to the real world but now basically serves its own ends. So you get judges endlessly making decisions about important issues – of which they know fuck all. Of course, if you’re a judge then a “fact” is what you say it is.
So judicial decisions are often pure crap but part of the game is everyone has to pretend otherwise. Basing a decision on four video games is – well, using a less than reliable statistical sample. Wait, let’s rephrase that -- it’s just fucking moronic!
But, look – so what if you choose one game and it is just a blast one monster after another game? That isn’t expression? Give me a break. If the storyline in a novel or movie involved nothing more than trying to overcome an onslaught of monsters who would say there was *no* speech involved. The essence of literature, of storytelling, is conflict. Fighting for your life is the most basic form of conflict. Does reducing it to its simplest terms make it somehow not a story, not expressive of anything?
But enough of this – here’s the real opportunity. What you do is whip up a CD of text IF and then get yourself booked on the Today Show or something, while the issue’s hot, and then we’ll all be rich when you start selling the CD – even if only lawyers buy it. So, OK, my games suck too much to go on the CD but I get a cut for thinking of the idea.