What Others Will Do

Don't trust others to do for you what is right for you. They won't; they can only be trusted to do what they think is right for them -- whether or not they have any genuine understanding of what is right for them.

Immigration

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

-- George Washington

Knowing One's Limitations

Only when one sees his limitations clearly can he begin to understand the nature and quality of his intellect. A man has to know his limitations. For if he doesn't, he will govern himself as a fool, always believing what he sees, always thinking he can handle what comes, never able to look carefully at what he doesn't know (and what it will take to know it), never able to anticipate how his shortcomings may encumber him.

Productivity

"Have you something to do to-morrow; do it to-day."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richards Almanack, 1742) - Reference: Poor Richard: The Almanacks, for the Years, 1733-1758, Intro by Van Wyck Brooks (94)

"Tomorrow is another day" - a mantra supporting procrastinators' notion that what isn't done to day will wait. But it's so easy to slip from this simple resignation into laziness, and justifying low productivity. In time this robs us of much life we would otherwise live.

Systems and Results

The right result is there ... it's just ... how do you get to it? What stands in the way? Mostly things that you'd never see or notice. Something as simple as not having enough time or money to finish the research ... or maybe the judge didn't have the time to read the compelling and unavoidably correct arguments so brilliantly produced (and so they went unnoticed) ... or perhaps someone annoyed or pissed the judge off last time through his chambers. Or maybe those who could make a difference were just too busy to focus sufficiently on that client's matter to do right by it. To get their mind around it.

Real tragedy lies in not in the system, which is structurally the best in the world, but in the natural limits of the people working within that structure. The most overwhelming disappointment to many lawyers is the realization that more often than not the system does not get to the right result because of these very ordinary limitations. If only they could see all the facts and all the law free of the taint imposed on their judgment by the various influences on their life and mind. But they can't. Maybe sometimes, not nearly always.

- David Speaker

First Post - Public Discourse

There remains little honesty or respect in public discourse. Those who disagree can't just disagree honorably, they must like children annihilate the other party ... somehow perceiving the other party's position as a threat to their own legitimacy.

- David Speaker