Smidge - 1
cassie - 0
This thread is providing an excellent show and tell lecture for both aspiring litigators and their clients. Unfortunately for the English the Scots have a lawyer who is going to win the case because he is running rings around the English argument.
This is not good for the English side, but it does reveal quite clearly why the English keep losing their arguments and the Scots are consistently beginning to win theirs. The English obviously need to engage lawyers who are up to speed with how to win arguments
and influence people. I agree with Smidge that the underdog's lawyer often makes a good politician as he spends a lot of time preaching to the converted and blinding the opposition, for what it's worth in these situations, with his gung-ho intellect, or rather pretensions to this.
However, in a world of people, and lawyers, who can tell a question from a statement and a subjective opinion from an objective one, as well as stay with the current in terms of analogies, the lawyer turned politician tends to come undone and often drowns in his own ineptitude. Look what happened to the lawyer Blair. He got away with murder simply by putting his hands in his pockets and grinning like a schoolboy whilst signing away his country, and everyone loved his little beaming behind. Had he been fighting for his country's survival in a court of law faced with opponents well versed in all three of the aforementioned capabilities, Mr Blair would have lost his case for destroying Britain with the people's consent.
Perhaps it's time politicians were made as accountable as other professionals must be. If the gung-ho lawyer wins and his case was strong simply because his opponents were weak then the defendant will find himself back in the dock over and over and the lawyer will inevitably lose credibility over time. Even Blair lost it as a politician with the same tactics.
But logic and rational argument, plus the rule of law seem useless in a courtroom such as this thread (note: a metaphor), where barrages of insults take the place of rational debate and the accused is anyone who doesn't agree, not with the plaintiff or the accused but with the solicitor.
Alas, the dupes of the world. It serves them right in some ways and in others it just makes things worse for those who can see all one thousand glittering orbs.
Cassie will respond by saying I have added nothing of value to the thread. But he would be wrong. I have added an allegory to the case for England. Those with only two eyes will see, those who are blind will be illuminated by a thousand mirrors before they use their own insight and capability.