Pocket paradigms

The technology of torts, with its tyranny of precedents and its infatuation with retribution over resolution, has, in the words of the country & western song, walked across our heart like it was Texas. No politics, no ideology, no culture has been immune. All of American life has been hauled into court. Thus we find in our path not only the endless droppings of corporate attorneys, but civil rights advocates who insist that the law will lead us to love each other, feminist counselors who believe that the world's oldest conflict can be settled on appeal, colleges that publish what amounts to a lawyer's guide to correct sex, and public interest activists trying to run a revolution out of the courthouse. -Sam Smith