Charlatans

Charlatans have always been with us, from the false prophets of ancient Israel to the snake oil salesmen of the 19th century. They prey on the gullible in every field, from medicine to engineering to law. It may be worth some effort to expose them, but not too much effort. True professionals need to focus their scarce resources on helping those wise enough to distinguish between honest providers and swindlers. There is only so much one can to to save fools from their folly.

Charlatans flourish when professionals are either unavailable, ineffective, or lack credibility. We now have an upsurge in legal charlatans because the legal profession has become unavailable, ineffective, or lacking in credibility. People are being subjected to legal attack while legal defense is being priced out of their reach. Too often, even if people can afford lawyers, those lawyers can't help them in corrupt courts. Legal jargon has become incomprehensible not only to laypersons, but to lawyers and judges as well. That gets people to the point of saying, "If I'm doomed anyway, at least I can mock and scream."

The danger, of course, is that when they lose, they provide more ammunition for the opposition to use to assault the rest of us. For that reason we may need to cut them off before they can create any bad precedents. We may need to be quite brutal about that.

I prefer to take most of their fulminations as mockery. They throw a twisted version of legal jargon back at lawyers and judges as a protest and an insult. If some of them delude themselves that their cries might bring any real relief, well, at least their delusions bring them some comfort until they get thrown into the pit.