Lawyers muck up the process
The next step removes the "same hands rule" and
allows the same individual that wrote the law to also interpret and enforce the law. Hence a dictator is born and
the government becomes a nation of man and not of laws, far removed from the intent of the framers of the original
constitution. James R. Blackston
Applause for James Blackston for his "My Turn"
(April 22) in The News concerning lawyers as legislators. It is ludicrous to think that lawyers should make the
laws. I am a printer, and it would be a bad idea for me to make laws for printers. I am prejudiced in favor of
my means to make a living; so are lawyers and everyone else.
Senator Roger Bedford , D-Russsellville, is a lawyer among
many, in the Alabama Legislature. Bedford was recently defeated in his ill fated attempt to fix the Alabama Constitutional
rewrite to insure dominance by an extremely powerful lawyer's monopoly. Few Alabamians realize the power and control
the lawyer's monopoly has over politics and the laws of the land, including everything from taxes to human rights.
The latter category disturbs me most. You see, lawyers want total control, similar to the control wielded upon
the colonies by England's King George in 1776. The same tyrannical control whose final result was America's war
for independence. Under King George human rights were none existent and the present day lawyer's monopoly follows
a strikingly similar design and purpose.
Bedford's proposal, if approved by the Legislature, would have given lawmakers (lawyers) the authority to rewrite
the entire constitution at once. What's wrong with Bedford's seeming innocent proposal. Some call his actions tyranny
and a gross usurping of power.
Our founding fathers wrote the original constitution with the people rights in mind. However, over the last 180
years, lawyers have, by dominating the legislature, single handedly rewritten and transformed the original constitution
into oblivion.
For example the original constitution provided for special courts to handle disputes between the people and the
state. One man, a lawyer and attorney general, single-handedly rewrote the constitution to eliminate the special
courts and further declared that the state cannot be made a defendant in any case. Today, if the state owes it's
citizens money - too bad - the citizen has no options and no avenue to address his problem before the state's lawyers.
Who, among us, can forget the exorbitant and outrageous pay raises the lawyer-legislators voted for judges recently?
One concept the people must not forget is that judges are always lawyers and lawyers are judge want-to-bees. What
is wrong with lawyers writing the law and also interpreting and enforcing the law. The answer is obvious. When
the illegal lawyers monopoly write the law, the law ultimately reads like a lawyer's prayer book.
James Madison, the chief framer of the Constitution of the United States, stated: "Where the whole power of
one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental
principles of a free constitution are subverted." The people must get lawyers out of the legislature and most
certainly must get lawyers out of the constitution's rewrite process.
We have suffered by sending too many lawyers to Montgomery. I personally think no lawyer should serve.
I know it sounds like I have something against lawyers. I have many friends who are lawyers and I hold them in
high regard, but I still believe they should not make laws.
Alabama faces a real crisis when our constitution is rewritten. Heaven help us if it turns out to be full of legal
jargon instead of common sense and wisdom.
Keep the lawyers at bay, if possible. Vote for the individual who does not have so much to gain by complicating
our process.
Tommy Patterson
Clanton
