FOR the THINKER (writing.com)
Review follows -
If a lawyer wanted a legal definition of the word “lawful,” he would look it up in Black’s Law Dictionary. I’ll do it for him and let him give us his view of what Black’s says in plain English—and and plain enough for any normal person to understand.
Comment: “and and plain enough….” Delete one “and.”
Lawful: The principal distinction between the terms “lawful” and “legal” is that the former contemplates the substance of law, the latter the form of law. To say of an act that is “lawful” implies that it is authorized, sanctioned, or at any rate not forbidden, by law. To say that it is “legal” implies that it is done or performed in accordance with the forms and usages of law, or in a technical manner. . .
Comment: I think there’s a typographical error here: To say of an act that is “lawful” implies that it is authorized….
Say, “that it is lawful”
In this paragraph, are you quoting directly from Black? Then acknowledge it by using words like “According to Black ….” Your mentioning Black in the first paragraph does not automatically apply in your second paragraph.
Further, the word “lawful” more clearly implies an ethical content than does “legal.” The latter goes no further than to denote compliance, with positive, technical, or formal rules; while the former usually imports a moral substance or ethical permissibility. A further distinction is that the word “legal” is used as the synonym of “constructive,” which “lawful” in not. Thus “legal fraud” is fraud implied or inferred by law, or made out by construction. “Lawful fraud” would be a contradiction in terms. Again, legal is used as the antithesis of “equitable.”
Comment: Because of you missed acknowledging your source in Paragraph 2, it is not clearly defined now who is speaking in this third paragraph. Is this you paraphrasing Black, or is it still Black?
When an official claims that he has done nothing illegal, it means only that he has done nothing that is not permitted by the authorities. In America, it is legal for go-go dancers to do sexually provocative things for money. The Supreme Court calls it “freedom of speech,” regardless of the fact that female genitalia don’t speak.
Comment: Where do you intend to use this? In a professional journal? You will have to think twice about your kind of readership before you continue this clause which can already stand on it’s own: The Supreme Court calls it “freedom of speech”
Among lawyers and lawyers-to-be, “regardless of the fact that female genitalia don’t speak” would garner points (har-de-har for you), but it is actually off-topic.
Activism is not listed in Black’s. It is listed in Webster’s as the practice of vigorous action or involvement in a means of achieving political goals or other goals. "Legal," by the way, in Webster’s, is defined, incorrectly, as permitted by law; lawful.
Comment: Activism where? In the legal profession? Qualify this.
Again, acknowledge Webster with quotation marks.
There is no valid argument. Activist judges are a contradiction of the definition of lawful. They are absolutionists in every sense. Any and every act can be declared constitutional or unconstitutional in their courts. The only determination in their courts is the people—what they want; that is, certain qualified people who discuss the issues between themselves and come up with determinations. They are called authorities. By the same system of the law now in practice in America, in Nazi Germany it was legal and acceptable to confiscate the Jew’s property and execute him.
Comment: There is no valid argument, where? Qualify this statement by completing the thought so as not to mislead your reader.
There is no basic difference in the American people, the German people, the Iraki people, or any other people. The difference is in the law. I’d like for a lawyer to explain to the American people why lawful, according to Webster’s, doesn’t agree with Black’s Law Dictionary, why only certain of us are qualified to practice law when any person of normal intelligence can read and understand the law. And finally, if the law is based on reason and experience common to all men, and the law applied to Nazi murderers, why does the law in America now allow absolutionist judges on the bench?
Comment: “why only certain of us are qualified to practice law.” “Some,” “a few,” or “not many” would be better.
These logical questions I have asked, for some reason, are never clearly answered. We get a trip around the world and come back to square one with a big zero. What does this say about authorities? Who needs them?
With many times the lawyers we need in the United States, just as I expected, no lawyer came forward to answer my questions. Lawyers are the bane of the America I knew. If you look hard enough for it, there is good in anything.
Comment: Better: In the many occasions we needed lawyers in the United States to answer my questions, nobody came forward .Is this what you mean?
Better: If you look hard enough,
The lawyer's job is to find that good and divert attention to it. To allow this, we must have quit using our minds.
Comment: Point to one direction. Say, “direct attention to.” Divert is the opposite.
“To allow this, we must have quit using our minds.” This is not very clear. In fact, it runs counter your direction. Did you mean this: “However, it is not what is happening with law in practice.”
Democritus of Abdera, democracy’s founder, declared, “by convention sour, by convention sweet, by convention colored; in reality, nothing but atoms and the void,” thereby acknowledging there is a higher law. In ancient Greek city-states, democracy was neither immutable nor invariable, which brought the Sophists to the conclusion that justice was either the interest of the strong or at best a convention entered upon purely on consideration of expediency and terminable on like considerations. So much for democracy. If it were the law in practice, authorities would be in big trouble. You get glowing phrases from our great authorities on the law, but it is policy, not the law in practice.
Comment: Continue about the law in practice and describe it. One more statement will do to highlight your negative impression of law in practice.
The philosopher, Aristotle: “To invest the law then with authority is, it seems, to invest God and reason only; to invest a man is to introduce a beast, as desire is something bestial, and even the best of men in authority are liable to be corrupted by passion. We may conclude then that the law is reason without passion and it is therefore preferable to any individual.”
Comment: But?
“We are born for justice,” asserted the Roman jurist Cicero, “and right is not the mere arbitrary construction of opinion, but an institution of nature,” and “that which is established on account of utility may for utility’s sake be overturned,” and “the laws are the foundation of the liberty which we enjoy; we all are the laws’ slaves that we may be free.”
The Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson, who is said to have believed in the existence of God on the evidence of reason and natural law, wrote in the Declaration: “the Power of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” He wrote: “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;” said rights that cannot be taken without the consent of the governed individual.
Comment: So? How do you connect these paragraphs together to law in practice?
Without a foundation to support the law, it is getting more bazaare by the day. U.S. authority has no basis in law for its taxing policy. The horse is out of the gate. The American individual has lost his most basic right, the right to survive on the fruits of his own labor. We are capable of comprehending nature and nature’s laws. We understand the reasoning of doing to others as we would have them do to us. No authority is above the law, but once in control, as history records, authority keeps its control by passing out the people’s resources and by punishing those who resist. Government entitlements—by government’s grace—says society has the responsibility of financially helping certain arbitrarily selected individuals. Franklin D. Roosevelt felt it government’s “duty” to keep millions of Americans by changing the fundamental law to accommodate society’s “helpless.”
Comment: That’s “bizarre.”
You started out with taxation. What about nature and its laws? Did you mean human nature?
This is not clear: “keeps its control by passing out the people’s resources”
Missing, “his:” Franklin D. Roosevelt felt it government’s “duty” to keep millions of Americans….
Are we natively helpless or do power seeking lawyers make us helpless? It was a lacking on the part of authority that brought about the Great Depression. It was the American people’s resolve that ended the depression and won World War II, not government.
“New Deal law” gave government control over the meek and poor, and some not so poor. New Deal law brought into play new ideas about inalienable rights, rights that formerly could not be taken without the consent of the governed individual.
Comment: “natively helpless” must mean naturally helpless
“It was a lacking on the part of authority that brought….” Must be “lack.”
Better: power-seeking. Place the hyphen to modify lawyers.
“New Deal law” gave government control over the meek and poor, and some not so poor. New Deal law brought into play new ideas about inalienable rights, rights that formerly could not be taken without the consent of the governed individual.
Comment: Enter now your idea about law in practice. So now, what? Connect it to these statements.
As we all know, money talks. If I wanted to be an elected official, I would join a political organization and help others get elected, hoping to be recognized and favored, perhaps to be placed as a candidate and provided with millions of dollars of campaign donations, most of which comes from the rich and powerful. Once elected, bought and paid for, rather than a leader, if I expected to remain in office, I’d be a follower of the party line. Thus, the nation is as divided as it has ever been, thanks to the law in practice. A house divided soon falls.
Comment: Better to emphasize at the start of this paragraph that this is what usually happens. Without it, it is as though you were giving a suggestion.
Resolve:
Sometimes more is not best. You have stated many sources here that at times side trips to another [related] topic before coming back. “So much for democracy,” in fact shows time spent on this topic is more than needed. Nevertheless, you can still knit them properly together to form your paper.
In writing, it is best to lay your work aside for a time, then come back to it and read it again. You will find things you had not seen before that needs some deleting, adding, re-wording, re-inforcing, re-organizing.
Good thinking! At least you are cerebral. The more we use our minds, the more our brain cells grow.
