March 9, 2025

Make no laws whatever concerning speech, and speech will be free; so soon as you make a declaration on paper that speech shall be free, you will have a hundred lawyers proving that “freedom does not mean abuse, nor liberty license”; and they will define and define freedom out of existence.

Voltarine de Cleyre (1866-1912), American poet, essayist, quoted in Upton Sinclair, The Cry for Justice (1920), Seldes p.85

What’s your favorite example of a lawyerly attempt (almost always procedural in one way or another) to stall, if not kill some initiative?

An excellent exposition of the function of a subset of lawyers, those employed solely to gum up the works. Keep it simple, stupid!