Law in Contemporary Society

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LizzieGomezFirstPaper 7 - 18 May 2012 - Main.LizzieGomez
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Eben: I have yet to figure out how to revise this paper. Per our conversation, I decided to write about something else. I plan to continue writing/contributing/editing over the summer. Please see LizzieGomezSecondPaper.
 

Introduction

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 In exposing modern legal magic in court trials, Frank was not concerned with finding a remedy. “You cannot control such courts unless you can also control their fact-finding. But that you usually can’t do.” (61). The point is for us to be aware of how the legal system is imbued with magical thinking.

I’m not sure, however, that we should idly sit back in this case. Political debates over immigration reform will be filled with magical words to ease our fears of change and chance of some “alien nation.” Minority leaders like Antonio Villaraigosa are right to call out Romney’s divisive self-deportation scheme, and I hope more get on board. (970 words)

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I don't understand what the use of Jerome Frank's vocabulary out of context is doing for you. "Self-deportation," like "illegal alien" are terms of political rather than legal significance, designed to reach unconscious rather than rational motives for social action. The goal is to prevent the United States from being a democracy with an even larger number of working-class people struggling to improve their lives at the expense of the rich. The best way is to divide workers against one another, along racial and ethnic lines, and to encourage workers to believe in the necessity of using violence against other workers to prevent them from "being illegal" and striving to "steal" citizens' jobs.

I don't think this has much to do with law, and you don't either. The idea that people are "illegal" because they aren't possessed of orderly immigration papers, or that they are committing an offense like murder or rape, is—in legal terms—a lie. In political terms, it's just another way of dehumanizing potential coalition partners for one's adversaries, in order to prevent the development of an opposing political force too strong to resist.

I exist because one boy, sixteen years old, came to the United States, alone, with no English, no friends, and no trade, let alone a job, in the fall of 1913. Under current law, he would have been refused entry, and would presumably have been murdered, along with all my other patriline relatives, between 1940 and 1944. He sent his youngest son, my father, to Harvard. Every "illegal" boy in the street is my grandfather. Those who want to send him away, or hurt him until he crawls away on his own, had better watch their backs until I am safely dead.

For you, as well as for me, the rest is bullshit. Write it that way, as you really know it is, and we'll all be fine.

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Revision 7r7 - 18 May 2012 - 21:54:19 - LizzieGomez
Revision 6r6 - 06 May 2012 - 03:47:57 - LizzieGomez
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