By Evelyn Pyburn

Save us from those who want to protect us.

The 12-year-old girl from Red Lodge who is passing a petition to allow people to become lawyers in Montana without going to law school or without sanctions of the Supreme Court, is so spot-on in so many ways. Why shouldn’t the legal profession be as accountable to the consuming public as a retail store or a hot dog stand???

The only problem with this young person’s petition is that it involves only lawyers. Why shouldn’t every profession be accountable to the people they serve more so than all-knowing overlords – who, as we have come to see, are not as all-knowing?

In fact, if never before, surely the past few years has demonstrated for all of us, how the overlords are not necessarily the benevolent caretakers and unbiased evaluators, as they would like to pretend. Almost every regulatory body has demonstrated that they can most easily be corrupted to gain political power and unearned wealth – whether they be attorneys, doctors, researchers, real estate agents, educators, engineers, or financiers.

In the end, we as consumers must always use our own good judgement about who we depend upon for expertise. Just because there is a piece of paper that gives someone sanction from some august body is no guarantee as to their expertise, honesty and true professionalism. Education can be a factor to consider but it should be the citizen’s right to do the considering. The transaction between a citizen and an attorney should be no different than in deciding what lawn mower to buy or what grocery store to patronize. In the end it should be a combination of attributes that commends the professional – not least of which is reputation, just as it would in any other FREE MARKET TRANSACTION.

Why shouldn’t a prospective client make the judgement call as to who they want to represent them legally? After all a citizen retains the right to represent themselves if they so choose; why shouldn’t they be FREE to choose who they want to advise them? The truth is this is as much as a protection racket as any other scheme.

And the fact of the matter is, in establishing a regulatory body to make such decisions, even should they start out as a fair and ethical group, just the existence of such a position becomes a shrieking invitation to corruption, which means it is just a matter of time before they are the corrupted, unjust and destructive bodies, as most have become.

We have surely come to recognize that even in the medical profession and with the overlords sanctioning medical treatments and medicines, our lives can be at risk if we are to make decisions based exclusively on official approvals coming from government. Big Brother is not necessarily our friend, and every citizen is responsible for their own decisions, every bit as much as if there were no licensing and permitting regimes. So why establish the pretense that there is some all-knowing, all-caring, honest and knowledgeable decision-makers who can relieve us of the responsibility of having to make such decisions ourselves? All that the existence of such “expertise” does is dupe a lot of trusting citizens, who have otherwise been brainwashed into trusting to “officials.” Not having such governmental advisors would make more clear to all citizens that they are still the final decision makers.

And more than that — over and over again in the history of our country we have seen that brilliance can emerge from anywhere – it does not always come from the hallowed halls of academia – and in fact sometimes it emerges because it was not blunted by the staid philosophies of “experts”. In those cases, quite frequently a brilliant new idea has been forestalled by regulating boards, either because their members weren’t as brilliant, or they were protecting their friends and political alliances. In all cases – lives hung in the balance. It is in allowing people to protect their lives that they must have the freedom to choose in the market place – most especially when it comes to choosing what “professionals” they want to rely upon.