Which comes first Laws or Lawyers
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@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
That's funny. Even the etymology of the word lawyer derives from the word law. Egg and chicken indeed.
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I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
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@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
What started this discussion? Seems kind of pointless other then for arguments sake.
I had to go back and read what started it. It was that he was blaming lawyers for laws, making one of those "if we got rid of the lawyers" arguments about things. And I pointed out that it isn't their fault, their job is just to work with the laws that they have. If we wanted better laws, we have to make better laws. Lawyers are like IT, we work with what vendors give us. Until someone makes an OS for us to use, IT is helpless. If the OS isn't great, you can't blame IT, we use the technology, we don't built it. Same with lawyers, they are an artefact of the laws, not the other way around.
But he is convinced of the opposite. That all of the lawyers created the legal system and the laws and that until there were lawyers were didn't have laws.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
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@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
And we heavily dislike many of them.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
While I don't agree and can prove so (kings can make laws without thinking, you can make an automated law system, etc.) to your foundations here... even if all of this was true, it has no connection to those people being lawyers. Lawyers study NOT the benefits, effects or whatever of laws that could be, they read what the allowances and penalties are under the laws that ARE. They don't study the concept of law, they study the actual law.
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@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
Exactly. This is done, but not by lawyers. By definition, they can't be lawyers because a lawyer doesn't create laws.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
Exactly. This is done, but not by lawyers. By definition, they can't be lawyers because a lawyer doesn't create laws.
They can be a lawyer and a politician but from a chicken and the egg standpoint we know that laws by definition came first.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
Exactly. This is done, but not by lawyers. By definition, they can't be lawyers because a lawyer doesn't create laws.
So a politicians can't also be a lawyer or the opposite?
That is clearly wrong.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
Exactly. This is done, but not by lawyers. By definition, they can't be lawyers because a lawyer doesn't create laws.
So a politicians can't also be a lawyer or the opposite?
That is clearly wrong.
Your argument is that because they are a politician they are also a lawyer. Not all lawyers are politicians and not all politicians are lawyers they are two groups that are often, but not always, mutually exclusive.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others. <-- This means that you don't believe that there is such a concept of a king or anyone that can seize power through any means but understanding how to preside? This is a statement so weird I'm not sure how to dispute it. It's like saying that the earth can't be round because, it just can't be.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits. What law of the universe dictates that laws have to be written to a certain benefit? And moreso, what additional law states that you have to understand them to attempt that?
This is layer after layer of disconnected assumption that is demonstrably untrue in the real world. Sure this can happen and does, but nothing "makes" it happen. Anyone can seize power, even a robot in theory, without any understanding. That person or thing could make laws, potentially arbitrarily. Even if they weren't arbitrary nothing says that they will study or understand the ramifications or goals.
And then, at the end, even if all of this were true, nothing connects these things to being lawyers.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits.
People do that everyday though. We call them politicians.
Exactly. This is done, but not by lawyers. By definition, they can't be lawyers because a lawyer doesn't create laws.
So a politicians can't also be a lawyer or the opposite?
That is clearly wrong.
Can you be an IT pro and a car mechanic? Of course. But you don't say that your car mechanic aspect is what fixed the computer.
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@coliver I understand this.
But to have the idea of laws, you must be a "lawyer" (creation of laws, not modern well established politicians and lawyers)
and to be very clear, this is a question of which came first.
Laws or Lawyers.
I would say lawyers must've come first to even have the idea of a "law" even if the Lawyer was a king of some country.
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I'll give a great example, King George III. He was insane. Totally loopy. No clue what was going on at all (it was a disease, he didn't mean to be a bad guy.) Yet he wrote the laws.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver I understand this.
But to have the idea of laws, you must be a "lawyer" (creation of laws, not modern well established politicians and lawyers)
and to be very clear, this is a question of which came first.
Laws or Lawyers.
I would say lawyers must've come first to even have the idea of a "law" even if the Lawyer was a king of some country.
So you're redefining words. I guess with your definition you are correct.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@coliver I understand this.
But to have the idea of laws, you must be a "lawyer"
this is where the flaws in logic come in. You have made a leap. You certain do not have to have an idea of laws to make them AND understanding the concept of laws in no way makes you a lawyer. Not in the least. That's why I keep pointing out that lawyers study THE law, not the concept of laws.
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@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I would say lawyers must've come first to even have the idea of a "law" even if the Lawyer was a king of some country.
And I say the opposite because that's not what the term lawyer means. The idea of a law is law as a concept, and not connected to the study of THE law as laid down by the politicians, which is the exclusive thing that can make you a lawyer.
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@scottalanmiller said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
@DustinB3403 said in Which comes first Laws or Lawyers:
I'm of the camp that you have to understand how to preside over others. <-- This means that you don't believe that there is such a concept of a king or anyone that can seize power through any means but understanding how to preside? This is a statement so weird I'm not sure how to dispute it. It's like saying that the earth can't be round because, it just can't be.
To do that, you'd write laws into existence that are either for your benefit or the benefit of the community. This to me means you have to understand what a law is / could be (before laws existed) so you could create them to reap the benefits. What law of the universe dictates that laws have to be written to a certain benefit? And moreso, what additional law states that you have to understand them to attempt that?
This is layer after layer of disconnected assumption that is demonstrably untrue in the real world. Sure this can happen and does, but nothing "makes" it happen. Anyone can seize power, even a robot in theory, without any understanding. That person or thing could make laws, potentially arbitrarily. Even if they weren't arbitrary nothing says that they will study or understand the ramifications or goals.
And then, at the end, even if all of this were true, nothing connects these things to being lawyers.
In remarks to the bold statements.
How is that difficult to understand? Genghis Khan ruled over a huge area, and made law. Law which was written with blood and force.
He wasn't a politician, he was a dictator who made laws to suit him.Government.
Point 2 - laws exist in modern form to say "you can't murder" religion is essentially law, but before laws existed. Religion has been around long before "law" yet you accept those to be fundamentals of law. Why?
People created these to protect themselves / others and to punish for doing "bad" things.
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You could use a term like a legalist, although that's used in other circles, or a "person interested in legalities" to define someone who writes laws. But even then, you are enforcing a degree of non-arbitrarianism that may not exist.
There are actually very large, well established legal circles that believe many laws are natural and are just inherent in the universe and required nothing to be established, they just always "were."
So the idea that a law can sprint from "nothing" actually is a well established legal principle.
Religions also often believe this carries forward to a greater degree like the ten commandments. They came from God, rather than "the universe" but still did not arise from people.
That someone normally thinks on a law before making it is certain, but not required. That that person is a lawyer, is not true. Until the law has been created, the lawyer has no law to study.
