What sayeth the Protagonist?

John Stossel posits the following premise in his latest screed:

In my years doing consumer reporting, I watched every American industry find ways to do things better, faster, and cheaper. Today's computers cost less, but are more powerful. Cars got better. Supermarkets offer more for less. Most every business is better.

But not the law business. In law, everything is slow and expensive, and our choices limited.

Stossel goes on:

Other businesses pad bills, too, but competition limits it. There's less competition in law because lawyers outlawed competition from outside their profession -- they prosecute paralegals who offer cheaper alternatives, calling it "unauthorized practice of law." And they are all bound by rules of procedure, drafted by lawyers and, for the federal courts, issued by the Supreme Court, that call for volumes of paper and make lots of work -- lucrative work, if you're a lawyer.

I think the essential issue is that we are a nation ruled not by Kings or God, but by laws. It would follow then that whomever makes the laws rules. At one point this had largely been the legislative bodies of the states and Federal government - which were exceedingly weak by today's standards. That generally left the individual as his own ruler, provided he did not break one of the relatively few laws which existed. Today our rulers are found in the judiciaries, populated (some would say infested) by attorneys.

I wonder what the Protagonist will have to say about this. E-mail me and I'll add it to the post. :-)