I made the Cooley reference as a joke, but these paranoid posts are making me think I may have accidentally been right.

Yeah, MM, I have to say that I'm pretty well missing the significance of the fact that a lawyer acts as personal representative of another in legal matters. (Of his client, by the way -- not of the banking industry, unless those are his client). Care to explain?

Paranoid? What does the rank of ones law school have to do with ones understaning of the nature of the political/economic reality. You're a good little slave whom the bankers have brainwashed into policing the (thought) prison for them. You argue for your own oppression, you defend your oppressors, and admonish others for daring to even question the propaganda we've been force fed. My legal education is a useful tool for navigating the commercial world created by the banks, but that does not mean that I am unaware (like you) that two different systems exist.

You have never answered my point, MM, that property taxes have always existed in America. Failing to do so, and attacking my status as an "attorney" instead of a "lawyer," is dangerously close to an ad hominem attack.

semck,

You know nothing of the association whose card you carry? Do you know whom you represent and to whom you're beholden? Do you read the contracts you sign?

"You know nothing of the association whose card you carry?"

I know a decent amount about them. But why don't you cut to the point and stop with all the dreary innuendos?

"Do you know whom you represent and to whom you're beholden?"

You're talking about the bar association, right? If so, then -- the Supreme Court of Texas.

"Do you read the contracts you sign?"

Mostly yes -- within reason. I don't spend too much time reading software or website EULAs anymore.

But what is your point?

My point is that you're an attorney AT law.

That isn't a point. It's a fact, yes. But you haven't used it to make a point. Please do.

"Paranoid? What does the rank of ones law school have to do with ones understaning of the nature of the political/economic reality."

Rank is overblown. I happen to be going to a quite good and well ranked school, but the criteria is shot to hell and not much use besides the built-in prestige which goes with a name. However, there is something to be said about the tiers law school are placed in. No much since the bottom of Tier 1 A Tier 4 law school like Cooley which constantly comes up as one of the worst in the country is probably the only sort of school which can produce a paranoid like yourself. At least, I hope so. For all I know you went to Michigan or Duke.

Should be
No much since the bottom of "Tier 1" is not placed all that great these days, but it still says something.

"...the only sort of school which can produce a paranoid like yourself."

Invictus, you're assumption that a school can "produce" a person is pretty pathetic. My law school and under grad is one of the best in the nation -- but there is much more to "education" than what you learn in school. You can call me paranoid, that is your prerogative. Personally, I think you're naive and foolish to so self-assuredly brush aside that which doesn't jibe with your world view. As I said, a legal education is a tool, nothing more. Being an attorney isn't who you are, it is what you're trained to do. Who one is infinitely more complex, and what one believes/understands should reach far beyond what they've been learned in school -- schools are agenda driven conformity factories. They have their place and function, but they are the be-all-end-all of what makes up a person's world view -- at least they shouldn't be, IMO.

semck,

My point, proven by you, is that you don't understand (or at least don't seem to) what that title is indicating about whom you represent, and in what legal realm you operate. It's ok, I don't expect you to know, understand, nor least of all believe me.

*shrug* Talk is cheap. Tell me what you claim the title really indicates, and then I'll either refute you or agree that I didn't understand.

Substance or it didn't happen.

Ok counselor, I'll tell you who you are. You are an "attorney AT law," i.e., you are only licensed to practice "private law for public commercial purposes" as opposed to "public municipal law for private purposes operating in personam." Didn't even know there is a difference did you? U.S. Const. art. I, § 10 my friend, it explains is all.

"Jesus Christ, for a bunch of really smart people, I can't believe how many are COMPLETELY missing the point. This isn't about paper versus plastic. The OP was about who controls wealth, why, how, and whether or not this is a good or bad thing.

The OP was about how the vast majority of wealth in the U.S. is controlled by financial institutions which only push around digital zeroes and contribute nothing of value. In my opinion, the pushing around of zeroes is of great value. Banks do a LOT on both a macro and a micro level. Is the value of what they do proportionate to the wealth they control? Probably not, but I don't think it's right to ignore the services banks do provide. It reminds me of the scene from Life of Brian about "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

"I'm not saying that anyone is entitled. I am saying, though, that it should be a reasonable expectation in a healthy and prosperous society that people who do all the right things and jump through all the hoops they're expected to jump through in life out to expect to at least not be destitute more often than not."

There's the rub. Who says that objective "right things" exist to be done, or that one person's perception of having "done the right things" and "jumped through the right hoops" is more valid than another person's? The problem is that some people have this notion that some equitable outcome should result from having done X, Y, Z. There is no cookie cutter recipe for success.

Exactly. It's what you're trained to do. If your training still allows you to wax crazy on allodial title and find sinister, esoteric meaning in the word attorney then I can only imagine it wasn't that great of a training. I have no reason to doubt that you're really a lawyer, but you sound like a swivel eyed sovereign citizen or tax protester. Schools are not the end all be all if who a person is, but they can certainly give you a general idea and what you've produced in this thread doesn't lead me to have a high opinion of your legal skills.

That's for MichiganMan, obviously.

Invictus,

How do you know I am even serious? Sometimes playing semantic games is fun, and challenging others to think a bit is entertaining as it reveals a great deal about their underlying persona. LOL You think you're so smart, it's laughable.

And this is the part where I back slowly away, saying "Niiiiice MichiganMan. There, there, that's right. You're definitely right. Goood MichiganMan."

It's almost as if you think that someone cannot hold conflicting views of a subject. That an MD cannot disagree with what the AMA says, or what conventional medicine says about holistic medicine.

semck,

you're such a coward.

As I said, I understand. You don't want to know the truth about what you do, it might make you actually THINK. No no no, that is no good...THINKING about what we do isn't good. LOL, it's easier just to be safe in your knowledge...the knowledge that you pay so much money to get. Again, I don't blame you. It tripped me out too when I came across it. But, just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it false.

In answer to your question, "Didn't even know there was a difference, did you?" I'll go you one (or two) better. I assert that the distinction you pasted is completely meaningless, and that Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution says nothing about it.

You should be laughing with joy by now, because if it's as easy and obvious a situation as you obviously think, then you can easily give concrete examples of the kind of law I'm supposedly not allowed to practice. (Please notice my requirement -- CONCRETE EXAMPLES, i.e., "You can't do the following actions in the following situation.").

One last thing. If you're just referring to the fact that US states can't grant letters of Marque or Reprisal or bill of attainder, then you have not in fact specified an "area of law" in which I can't "practice," since those are legislative acts that are prohibited, not areas of law that are proscribed.

"But, just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it false. "

It doesn't make me uncomfortable at all. Talking to people whose sanity I have reason to suspect makes me uncomfortable. (That was a joke, though -- that doesn't make me uncomfortable either, over the internet, and I don't actually suspect your sanity).

As for what makes it false -- you're right it's not any lack of comfort. It's just lack of truth or even coherency.

Coherency? come on counselor, what I am saying is perfect coherent -- it may not jibe with your understanding of the law (which you thought you knew well) but it is decidedly NOT incoherent.

Cool. Then you can easily give me the concrete example I asked for.

Lack of truth? You don't have any idea what you're talking about. You think because YOU, an attorney, had never heard anything about this, that it MUST be false. Your ignorance is derived from your intellectual arrogance, sorry to say. I know, i was in the same boat as you were at one time.

*yawn* You definitely got an A in the class about talking a lot of hot air and rhetoric when you don't have any substance. But there's no need -- since you do have substance, present it and you can stop being angry and start gloating.

You do have substance, right? Notice where I asked for a concrete example, above.

How is U.S. Const. art. I, § 10 not concrete?