the oath

Today I did not blog until now because I have been busy with work, a job interview, and joining the legal profession.



Amid the pomp and circumstance of joining the Utah Bar, there is an important task that some 260-odd men and women did today. We raised our right hands and pledged to defend the United States Constitution and the Utah Constitution, to treat each other civilly, to obey the rules of ethics, etc. I take those oaths very seriously, and this is why speak out so aggressively against things and people like Torture, NSA wiretapping, Rudy Giulliani, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, vouchers, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, etc.

America-- and the state of Utah-- was founded as a nation and state of laws, not men. I do not pledge allegiance to a flag or to a government, but to a set of rules which the people have agreed to be governed by-- our constitutions.

The republic is under attack, and not just occasionally from Al Qaeda, but from within by those that think that might trumps right and that we must throw away centuries of laws to sleep at night. Their recklessness is what keeps me up at night. I think of all of people around the world who grow to hate America and Americans, of all the people who use the policies and rhetoric of this Administration to repress democracy and peace in their own countries and regions.

While not all of us can or should become lawyers, all of us should personally pledge to defend this state and country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, who seek to subvert our constitution for their own personal or ideological benefit and to the determinant of the people for whom the government was created.