In law, as in so many other endeavors, sometimes the most difficult thing for people to do is to keep their mouths shut. Suspects want to "explain," as if the grant-driven government is going to have pity and drop its investigation. And attorneys want to unnecessarily find out things or prematurely argue things, reminding the government that they have forgotten to investigate, or to file, or to seek a warrant, or whatever. Sometimes the attorneys are the biggest problem, because the craft focuses, inordinately, on talk, and writing, and blabbing.
Far more cases are put together at the investigation stage because suspects can't shut up, and then proceed to government success at the filing and prosecution stage because lawyers can't shut up, than would otherwise occur in the normal course.
One thing suspects [or people who are not suspects until they open their mouths!] cannot fathom, because it is counter-intuitive to a generation that might have been brought up on the naive notion that government is your friend and is only there to look out for you[!], is that government is not your friend. You might be the sovereigns; you might be the electors; you might be the taxpayers funding their living and thereby your own undoing, but government has only one friend, and that is itself. If government suspects you, or your friends or loved ones, or whomever, politely decline to say anything. Politely. Decline.
Very often a response to that advice sounds in "but I am an honest person." Uh, Hello! I didn't say to lie to the cops; I said to shut up. And you might be an honest person, but government is not - they are allowed by the courts to lie to you to get what they want, even though if you lie to them, it will be deemed consciousness of guilt and possibly a separate and distinct new crime. There is a different standard as between what we [the masters] and our government [the sevants] can do, and the servants are allowed to get away with far, for more than the masters.
The same "shut-up" advice goes for attorneys - yeah, I know you concentrated all through law school of how to verbalize winning [and sometimes scholarly sounding] points, but often now the best argument is none, if it is your clients' liberty and not your vainglory which is of uppermost importance. And if that priority is not what animates you, get out of the profession.
We fought and won a Revolution partially to keep government out of our houses and out of our mouths, and we sully the memory of those blood-soaked heroes [when "hero" had a real, and not merely propaganda, meaning] every time we talk too much or consent too much and thereby shift the balance toward power and away from liberty.
Far more cases are put together at the investigation stage because suspects can't shut up, and then proceed to government success at the filing and prosecution stage because lawyers can't shut up, than would otherwise occur in the normal course.
One thing suspects [or people who are not suspects until they open their mouths!] cannot fathom, because it is counter-intuitive to a generation that might have been brought up on the naive notion that government is your friend and is only there to look out for you[!], is that government is not your friend. You might be the sovereigns; you might be the electors; you might be the taxpayers funding their living and thereby your own undoing, but government has only one friend, and that is itself. If government suspects you, or your friends or loved ones, or whomever, politely decline to say anything. Politely. Decline.
Very often a response to that advice sounds in "but I am an honest person." Uh, Hello! I didn't say to lie to the cops; I said to shut up. And you might be an honest person, but government is not - they are allowed by the courts to lie to you to get what they want, even though if you lie to them, it will be deemed consciousness of guilt and possibly a separate and distinct new crime. There is a different standard as between what we [the masters] and our government [the sevants] can do, and the servants are allowed to get away with far, for more than the masters.
The same "shut-up" advice goes for attorneys - yeah, I know you concentrated all through law school of how to verbalize winning [and sometimes scholarly sounding] points, but often now the best argument is none, if it is your clients' liberty and not your vainglory which is of uppermost importance. And if that priority is not what animates you, get out of the profession.
We fought and won a Revolution partially to keep government out of our houses and out of our mouths, and we sully the memory of those blood-soaked heroes [when "hero" had a real, and not merely propaganda, meaning] every time we talk too much or consent too much and thereby shift the balance toward power and away from liberty.
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