"Be Professional...."

That is the exhortation of the hypocrite who fears the truths of what a properly principled person is saying and doing.

I recently accurately noted that only "government hacks" masquerading as scientists would embrace the government positions about alcohol forensics that drive drunk driving prosecutions, and I earlier accurately called a government stool pigeon a "stoolie," and the judges in each circumstance went nuts; I was being "unprofessional."  They don't hesitate to call my clients drunks, murderers, robbers, rapists, burglars, but Heaven Forbid! that I accurately label one of their chums, or the chums of their beloved prosecutors, what they are.  And the complaint against my truthful labels and utterances always sounds in terms of lack of "professionalism."  So what does that mean, not being "professional"?

Our craft touts itself [with diminishing aptness!] a "learned profession."  And in that context, nobody is more factually or intellectually prepared, nor more supported in his positions by scholarly and accurate research, nor more able to present his positions by attention to proper procedure and evidentiary standards, nor more willing to treat the various actors in the courtroom with their "due respect" [the "respect" they are "due" based on their level of enlightenment or scholarship or thoughtfulness] than I, so what means "professional"? 

Has "professional" come to connote some juristic political correctness of saccharine phraseology or false deportment that hides the essence of that which is being discussed or conveyed?

I suppose the "be professional" crowd would find favor in the quietly dignified death camp commander who, with reserved profundity of mien, while pensively listening to Wagner, sipping Liebfraumilch, gently inhaling a French cigarette in a gold cigarette holder, dressed nattily in creased and starched uniform, with seriousness of purpose orders the monthly supply of Zyklon-B gas.  He would thereby "be professional."  In contrast, the firebrand who would loudly denounce him for his inhumane barbarism would be "unprofessional." 

King George, III, violating colonial liberties with arms and ships and various affirmative outrages, while gently taking snuff from a solid gold case cradled in his lace-encircled hand, would be "professional"; in contrast, Samuel Adams dispatching the Sons of Liberty to dump the celebrated tea would be "unprofessional."  Sorry, Gang - I'll take Adams and the firebrand over those "professionals" any day of the week.

So, any time someone in power scolds you for being "unprofessional," sincerely thank him, because he thereby recognizes that you will demand substantive liberty over pretentious tyranny, that, in short, you are an American, while they and the ones they prefer are the Huns.