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Monday, December 31, 2012

Law School Professors

Exist to make the rest of us grateful that we are not so stupid:
As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, (and then finally experienced the revelatory mind-expansion of medical marijuana)
 I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. (Many of your peers achieved this illumination with LSD decades ago - where were you?)
Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. (Imagine all the people, living foooor toooodaaayyyy. More appositely, is there not a sane citizen in the country who doesn't just cringe at the thought that either the president or one of the party leaders in Congress should be entitled to implement one or more of their great ideas with no legal impediment?)
Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. (oooh. They were white. They owned property. They revolted against their divinely appointed leadership, and even had the NERVE to speak their S_n_t_rs names in a critical context during election season. How evil! They were everything we hate.) 
Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?  (Well, no. But it is remotely rational that the official should then have the burden of convincing other elected officials of the correctness of his reasoning, and if said course of action requires a change in the Constitution, also of the need to change the Constitution. It's not like we've never amended this document, now is it?)
 Professor Mind-Expanding-Drugs (Indian name Give-Me-The-Bong) is not arguing for the lack of a Constitution, but for the lack of rule of law. If we have no Constitution, we have no legal framework that tells us what laws can't be passed by whoever wants to pass them. If there's something about our current Constitution that we don't like, we can change the Constitution. 

While the professor appropriately observes that some countries don't have Constitutions, he forgets that they do have a similarly restrictive basis in Common Law and similarly restrictive legal review of branches of government. Many countries have constitutions and ignore them, and other countries have constitutions that would quite frankly give Prof Give-Me-The-Bong a bad case of the vapors. 

It's not the Constitution or the common law - it's what's in it, and whether what's in it serves as a real constraint upon the brilliant ideas of the governing class. Since we are country of immigrants, there is nothing to provide a common foundation for rule of law except the set of laws we have adopted, and the first and foremost of those was the Constitution. 

For much tighter, more reasoned and objective analysis of our current social plight, I refer you to Dave Barry.

Happy New Year! Whatever your current situation, you can spare a moment for a prayer of thanks that fate did not turn you into a Georgetown law professor.

Comments:
The NY Times must be desperate for readers as they've sunk to a new low.
 
I think we should pay for birth control for anyone who considers this man's words a worthy education.
 
I'm also thankful I didn't turn into a Georgetown law student.
 
A fate worse than death, Charles. You would have had to testify before Congress about the horrifying cost of the special condoms that you require (possibly due to a surfeit of manliness), and the urgent necessity for the health plans of the nature to require funding these condoms at $4.00 per condom/10 condoms per day.

Think of how embarrassed your mother would have been trying to convince all the neighbors that you were only gay-for-pay and that your gay porn career was solely undertaken for the purpose of funding your seven year course of study at Georgetown Law.
 
OK...I'll ask The Question since I, too, am an elderly white male.
Is this "Professor" a young black male?
Inquiring minds want to know...
From one racist to another..Lemme know!
Good Ole Charlie
 
Scott - they've been there for a while. NYT now has many brilliant comic moments enshrined in its opinion pages.

My favorite was the lesbian professor who was steamed up about the same-sex marriage law - the terrifying prospect of being forced to marry her partner or lose domestic partner insurance coverage caused her great angst, which was duly shared with the NYT readership.
 
Good Ole - after 40 years as a law professor, he sure ain't young. No, he's an elderly white dude desperately seeking publicity for a book he has written.

In more dignified times, he would simply have stripped nude, painted his genitals to resemble those of a mandrill, donned a billboard advertising the book cover, and pranced through Times Square. But ever since Gay Pride parades became common, this sort of thing no longer draws the public's interest, so now he must publicly expose his intellectual shortcomings.


 
M_O_M:
Sounds like early Alzheimers...you're never too young to sound stoopid.
Does The Book feature photographs? The dust jacket portrait alone would be interesting...
Good Ole charlie

 
Does the professor's new book come with 8 or 16 crayons?
 
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