Twenty Six: Elected Judges

In general, elected state court judges are by and large, incompetent. They routinely allow parties and clients to severely abuse the discretion of the court, especially when the clients are pro se. If the pro se party appears slightly deranged, the judge allows even more leniency which leads to further abuse.

Let's face it - the U.S. jurisprudence system does not exist for the dispensation of justice, or to find remedies, or to resolve conflict, or to find basic fairness in the affairs of men and society. It exists to perpetuate itself, like any other bureaucracy. The parties are grist for the mill. The lawyers and judges do a kind of dance which they all think is solemn and dignified. Actually it is a joke at the expense of the parties it is supposed to serve.

The judges, especially at the state court level, are the bottom of the barrel amongst lawyers. When you go to law school, you can tell who the judges are going to. They're the ones with their hands constantly in the air trying to show the professors and other students how much they know. The need for recognition is obvious.

The moral to this story is plain: Stay the hell out of court unless the alternative is prohibitively expensive or otherwise unavailable. Once you're in the system, there are no winners, except of course for the judges and the sycophant lawyers.