Saturday, March 22, 2008

"Us" versus "Them" - a Parable

An older prosecutor was sitting on a park bench, reading about a scandal involving his office, when an older defense attorney walked by.

"That story makes your office look bad," the defense attorney tells the prosecutor. The prosecutor nods, grimly.

"I've been warning people about that guy for years," the attorney continues. "I knew he would be an embarrassment."

The prosecutor says nothing, having no argument.

"It wasn't just him, either," the defense attorney says. "It was an Office-wide problem."

"Your office should have acknowledged its mistakes sooner," he goes on. "You are all over-zealous. You don't care about the truth. You have this culture of arrogance. You all look moronic with your 'war on drugs'. You are a bunch of liars and jack-booted thugs. You are unreasonable and unflexible, and I hope that a new D.A. fires you all."

"Well," the prosecutor said, "you know, you aren't all that pleasant to deal with sometimes, either."

The defense attorney frowns and shakes his head.

"See," he said. "It's that type of 'us versus them' attitude that creates this whole problem."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, all this "us versus them" attitude, it's almost like an adversarial system. And now we're supposed to choose between two sides in an election. Why's life have to be so difficult?

Speaking of which, I thought this was a pretty good break-down of the runoff: http://www.gregsopinion.com/archives/008343.html

Murray Newman said...

That really is an interesting webstie you listed.

Like the ID name, too.

anonymous c said...

Another pitch-perfect parable from AHCL.

You have a real gift for morphing the convoluted into the clear.

Ron in Houston said...

Well, I wasn't talking about that type of us versus them.

It was the either you're for Seigler or against her.

Mark's "Three Opinions" post gives a lot of information. It is neither pro Lykos nor anti Seigler.

Besides, Mark didn't really editorialize in that post. He just reported what people told him.

Nice parable. I'm sure if I take you or Mark out after court, either one of you would be an interesting drinking partner.

Murray Newman said...

Ron,
I'm up for drinks whenever you and Mark are.

cjclawyer said...

I guess I'm one of your more "dim" readers! :)

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