Incompetent Defense

In the legal arena, appeals are sometimes granted on the grounds of incompetent defense. When a lawyer does a particularly poor job defending his client it can be unclear if a guilty verdict is due to actual misdeeds of the defendant, or due to the fact that the defense team may as well have been working for the prosecution. When someone we care about faces an accusation, we want to be able to tell ourselves that they have the best possible representation. We don't want to go into the situation knowing that the chosen defense team is not the right one for the job. We certainly don't want to see a defense team that may even be hostile to the client.

On the world stage today we see an increasing chorus of accusations being made against capitalism. The prosecution's team is made up of socialist states in Central and South America, some European countries, China, Russia and an increasing number of anti-corporatists here at home. Six Central and South American socialist states released a declaration this week blaming most of the worlds problems on capitalism; economic crisis, global warming, food crisis, energy crisis, and more. Back in March, China called for a new global currency to be controlled by the International Monetary Fund. China renewed that call again yesterday. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been calling for a new financial architecture for the 'global age' for several months.

At the G20 summit on April 2nd the heads of state for the worlds largest economies came to an agreement on a $1 trillion international bailout package. Germany and France had initially declared opposition to the plan. What had at first looked like a principled position supporting a process that let nations deal with the crisis individually turned out to just be a bargaining chip used to leverage concessions on international banking regulations from other member nations. CNN reported that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said;

the final deal included agreement on tighter regulation of hedge funds, tax havens and the banking system.

"We will implement new rules on pay and bonuses at a global level that reflect actual performance with no more rewards for failure," Brown said. "We want to encourage corporate responsibility in every part of the world."

Someone needs to explain to Prime Minister Brown that executive pay and bonus levels did not cause the current global economic woes.

So where is the defense team for capitalism? Socialism is on the verge of becoming trendy right here in the USA, yet we find ourselves staring at the clock on the courtroom wall wondering when the defense team is going to arrive. It is traditionally the United States that carries the banner for capitalism in the world. Unfortunately, the handling of the defense of capitalism on the world stage has been left in the hands of a man that is not sympathetic toward his client.

When six socialist leaders come together to denounce capitalism as the source of all of the world's problems, the silence of the American president is conspicuous. Capitalism is just a code word for the United States in the minds of men like Hugo Chavez. These six socialist leaders have just placed the blame for the worlds woes squarely on the shoulders of the people of the USA. The citizens of the USA need competent defense and none has stepped forward. It's time for us to realize that the defense team just isn't up to the task. If we want the job done right, we're going to have to do it ourselves.

When one decides to represent himself in a court of law, he waives his right to claim incompetent defense at a later date. Sadly, it will be up to us as individuals to speak up on our own behalf in response to the accusations against us. In reality, our advocate never wanted the case, and was never competent to defend us anyway.