I have another question...

[Warph]

My second question is how come the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, only 24 were lawyers or jurists, but of the current 100 senators, 60 are lawyers

While it's true that there are slightly more than a million lawyers in America, that is less than one percent of the adult population. So how is it that 60% of the U.S. Senate and slightly over 30% of the House members, in addition to their party affiliation, are entitled to put Esq. after their name

I believe the problem is two-fold:  

One, it's just too easy and too much fun being a politician;

And two, it's just too hard and not enough fun being a lawyer.  

If people enjoyed being lawyers more, they wouldn't be so damn eager to run off to Albany, Sacramento, Springfield, Atlanta or Washington, D.C.  Frankly, I don't know how to make the practice of law a more exciting career.  So, instead, I think it behooves us to come up with ways to make politics a less attractive option.  

The one notion that popped into my head was to take a leaf out of the Aztec playbook and initiate human sacrifices.  Would any of us really have strong objections to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Babs Boxer, Arlen Spector, Henry Waxman, Chucky Schumer, Susan Collins (and her twin) Olympia Snowe, Chris Dodo and Elmer Fudd .... and while we're at it, lets include Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Rahm Emanual, Valerie Jarrett and Stuart Smalley ....being offered up to pacify the angry spirits of the Founding Fathers

[jarhead]

No objection here,WARPH

[frawin]

Warph, I thought this was relevant to your post:

THIS IS WHY THERE WILL NEVER BE TORT REFORM:

Filed under: Most Recent Posts — thearizonasentinel @ 5:41 pm
This is why they will not talk about tort reform, and it is why we as states must sever our ties with Washington DC.
As Candidate for the Governor of Arizona,     on of my top three items on the agenda will be just that.      our campaign blog site is//  www.arizona4therepublic.worpress.com     word press works great  ..

Perhaps this is the problem
This is very interesting!  I never thought about it this way. Perhaps this is why so many physicians are conservatives or republicans.
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party.
       * Barack Obama is a lawyer.
       *  Michelle Obama is a lawyer.
     *   Hillary Clinton is a lawyer.
         *   Bill Clinton is a lawyer.
         *   John Edwards is a lawyer.
         *    Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer.
Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate).
Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school.
Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress:

            *   Harry Reid is a lawyer.
             *  Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer?  Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.   
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers.  The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .  And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail?  Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers.  Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people.  Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine.  But it is an awful way to govern a great nation.  When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the leg al system in our life becomes all-consuming.  Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government.  We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit.  We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives.  America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.  When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big.  When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great.  When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America    Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789.  Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders.  Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business.  Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work.  Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as 'spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you' and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
Please — DO  PASS  THIS  ON!!!

[Teresa]

The one notion that popped into my head was to take a leaf out of the Aztec playbook and initiate human sacrifices.  Would any of us really have strong objections to Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Babs Boxer, Arlen Spector, Henry Waxman, Chucky Schumer, Susan Collins (and her twin) Olympia Snowe, Chris Dodo and Elmer Fudd .... and while we're at it, lets include Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Rahm Emanual, Valerie Jarrett and Stuart Smalley ....being offered up to pacify the angry spirits of the Founding Fathers [/b]

No objections.. I will volunteer to lead them to the alter......  

**I posted a couple lines more... but deleted them....

They were not very lady like...~~

(((that damn McDonald cougar blood is working overtime in my veins)))
Probably Jimmie's fault.. **

[larryJ]

I would guess that Lawyers would be more likely candidates because they would, or should, have more understanding of federal and state laws.  I think I would prefer the congressperson to be a lawyer, IMHO.

Larryj

[Warph]

I would guess that Lawyers would be more likely candidates because they would, or should, have more understanding of federal and state laws.  I think I would prefer the congressperson to be a lawyer, IMHO.

Larryj

But larry... look where the @&%$*# government lawyers (pardon my french) has got us today.  Frank's post pretty will tells it like it is: "The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers."  What we need to get the economy back on track is "Reaganomics."   The Ronald Reagan free-market revolution, which included regulation lite, a sound dollar and low tax rates, launched a three-decade-long boom.  Hell, the Gipper's policies were copied around the world.... So why not try something different, OBAMA?  Unfashionable as it may be today, why not go back to the supply-side model of lower marginal tax rates for individuals and businesses, large and small?..... It's the incentive model of economic growth.  At lower tax rates, where folks keep more of what they earn and invest, greater after-tax rewards spur greater work effort and investment risk.  They also boost asset values. This is exactly what the economy needs: a rejuvenated dose of incentives -- permanent incentives. Think of this: At the same wage level from cost-conscious businesses, a 10 percent personal tax cut provides a handsome after-tax wage-increase incentive that will spur individuals to go back to work -- simply because work will pay more after-tax. ... Simple economics.... simple Reaganomics....  IMHO, of course. 

[Anmar]

didnt we just have 8 years of reaganomics?

[Diane Amberg]

Ok....Then why were the Bushes so anti Reagan back in the campaign days.? They tried to sink him before they ever got elected.

[larryJ]

Anmar, maybe you are too young to remember or didn't live here when Reagan was Governor.  California was floundering before he became Governor pretty much like it is today.  Reagan became governor and made some brilliant decisions, this from an actor (!), and turned the economy around by cutting taxes, etc., all those things Warph mentioned.  When he ran for President, he was a shoo-in based on his economic policy and the economy was good, hence Reaganomics.  I don't really see a connection between the Bush economy and Reaganomics.  It is hard to argue against proven economic decisions.

Pasted from Wikipedia, this is the support side of the arguement.  There is a critical side, but I think this is the more important side.

_______________________________________________________________________________

According to a 1996 study[30] from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute:

On 8 of the 10 key economic variables examined, the American economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre- and post-Reagan years.
Real median family income grew by $4,000 during the Reagan period after experiencing no growth in the pre-Reagan years; it experienced a loss of almost $1,500 in the post-Reagan years.
Interest rates, inflation, and unemployment fell faster under Reagan than they did immediately before or after his presidency.
The only economic variable that was worse in the Reagan period than in both the pre- and post-Reagan years was the savings rate, which fell rapidly in the 1980s.
The productivity rate was higher in the pre-Reagan years but much lower in the post-Reagan years.
In the last year of the Carter Administration (1980) the US inflation rate climbed to a peak of 14.8%, the top individual tax payer rate was 78%, unemployment was 7.4%, federal outlay was 17% higher than the economy's growth rate, and the federal government grew while enacting loads of new spending programs. During this period, the US economy was the worst it had been since the Great Depression of the 1930s.[citation needed] The nation was in quite a deep hole of economic collapse when the new president Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981.[citation needed] Reagan had to devise a constructive, sound tax and monetary policy to pull the US out of its economic low point.[citation needed]

Stephen Moore of the Cato Institute stated that "no act in the last quarter century had a more profound impact on the US economy of the eighties and nineties than the Reagan tax cut of 1981." He claims that Reagan's tax cuts, combined with an emphasis on federal monetary policy, deregulation, and expansion of free trade created a sustained economic expansion creating America's greatest sustained wave of prosperity ever. The American economy grew by more than a third in size, producing a $15 trillion increase in American wealth. Every income group, from the richest, middle class and poorest in this country, grew its income (1981-1989). Consumer and investor confidence soared. Cutting federal income taxes, cutting the US government spending budget, cutting useless programs, scaling down the government work force, maintaining low interest rates, and keeping a watchful inflation hedge on the monetary supply was Ronald Reagan's formula for a successful economic turnaround. The economic principle that business expansion, jobs and wealth follow low tax rates is widely accepted.[citation needed] The last principle Ronald Reagan incorporated was the realization that immigrant workers are a key and vital component of the US economy.


Larryj

[frawin]

I don't recall the Bush family being anti-Reagan, George H.W. was his VP  and GW was not even into politics, he was engaged in Oil and Gas Exploration in Midland Texas when Reagan was elected.