On Veterans, Lawyers, and Democracy

  Our world contains some pretty remarkable things: the Grand Canyon, Mozart’s operas, the Great Wall of China. One common attribute of all of these, and the tens or more of others I could name, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, is that we immediately recognize them for what they are; literally extraordinary, in a manner that leaves us marveling at the abilities of nature and humanity.

There are, on the other hand, some pretty miraculous things that are so much ordinary parts of our lives that we barely notice how special they are; the birth of a child, for example, or a simple sunrise. Stopping to think about them, one can be awed by the mere fact that nature, or God if you prefer, or both,, could bring together the almost unbelievable correlations of circumstances that make these things possible.

One of the true miracles of modern society took place last week. The citizens of the United States, deeply and almost evenly divided on matters of ideology, policy, principle, program, and values, peacefully elected a president. And all Americans, no matter how unhappily, accepted the result.

Other nations have achieved something of this miracle. The European democracies have, relatively recently, come to create some form of it. Even China, with its leadership change this week, will see it done peacefully, with citizen acceptance if without citizen participation. But the miracle that is the American presidential election is the most successful, longest-running, and socially broadest such event in the world. True, there was a bit of a hiccup following the election of 1860. But despite the horrors it produced, in the end the United States remained a nation, even truer to its founding principles. During the long period of bitter sectional divide that followed, we continued to elect our presidents and accept the results. Even when the United States Supreme Court, in the opinion of many (myself included), wrongly interjected itself effectively to decide a presidential election, the losing side accepted the ultimate legitimacy of that act. To my mind, this achievement is on the order of the Grand Canyon, or the Great Wall. (I’m still thinking about Mozart’s operas.)

I guess it’s fair to ask why I’m departing from my usual practical musings and waxing philosophical today. I guess the fact that yesterday was Veterans Day has gotten me thinking of the sometimes extraordinary price some of us pay to continue our uniquely successful popular democracy. So many American men and women have sacrificed their own welfare and, too often, their lives, to protect this thing that we take for granted.

But that led me to another thought. Our veterans were, and the members of our armed services are, protecting a structure built by lawyers. Not only built by lawyers, but structurally maintained and kept operational by lawyers. And not just a few special lawyers here and there, although certainly such people have always stepped in at times of crisis to maintain our practices and our order. Every lawyer, whatever her practice, daily helps to maintain a system that emphasizes individual freedom, personal accountability, systematic social order through a combination of legal proscriptions and the incentives law stimulates, and protection against governmental abuses of power, with a keen awareness of our professional responsibility to ensure that it is, in fact, laws that rule, not people.

It’s often hard to think about this when you’re trying to meet a court deadline, close a merger, probate an estate amidst an unattractively quarreling family, or find basic healthcare for your indigent client. But if you step back for a moment, it’s obvious.

It is the right and moral thing to do, to thank our veterans. Without them, who knows what our world would look like, but it’s a good bet it wouldn’t look as good as it does. I, for one, have the deepest respect, admiration, and gratitude for what the men and women of our armed forces give us and, by giving us, sacrifice themselves.

But it’s also ok to remember to thank lawyers around election time. although we rarely make the sacrifices of soldiers. Without our veterans, we could not sustain our miraculous democracy. Without lawyers, there would be nothing to protect.