Correcting Misconceptions

Contracts present one area of law that the "common man" frequently interacts with.  No doubt each of my millions of readers is currently contractually bound to all sorts of obligations, most of which he or she is unaware.  Unfortunately, contracts are largely misunderstood by non-lawyers.  From what I recall of life before law professors corrupted my mind, a layman might think of a contract as a written agreement between people.  Websters defines a contract as "a written or spoken agreement, esp. one concerning employment, sales, or tenancy, that is intended to be enforceable by law." I am here to tell you that anyone promoting these views is blowing sunshine where it doesn't belong. If I were to write the unwritten definition of a contract used by lawyers, it would read:

A contract is the preferred method used to swindle, defraud, cheat, scam, hornswoggle, or otherwise obtain one's objectives while complying with the law while evading its mandates. 

Allow me to support my allegations with a few examples. Like everything else lawyers do, those in charge have erected a wonderful inky curtain separating those who have traded their souls to join the bar club from the rest of the soul-having population. The curtain, comprised largely of false statements meant to deceive as well as the defecation of male bovine, operates to create unique rules to govern separate situations.  In a stroke of genius, once those rules are established they are immediately circumvented.

One method by which this is accomplished is defining terms in ways that defy logic. For example, the Uniform Commercial Code governs the sale of "goods," while the common law regulates transactions involving services or other non-goods. Goods, in turn, are defined as "moveable objects." Think of the store you go to when money is burning a hole in your pocket.  Everything on the shelf there is a good.  But then, evidently some lawyers are also engineers, or else have definitely earned their title of doctor.  Other "goods" include the unborn offspring of livestock, growing crops, and live timber.  I am rather surprised no enterprising lawyer has yet patented the methods involved for relocating these goods.

Another brilliant example comes from the law governing what constitutes an "offer." This is important, because the legal effect of an offer is the creation of the power to accept that offer in the person to whom you made it.  Luckily, lawyers have removed this area of law from rational thought as well.  To illustrate, if I were to jokingly offer to sell you my house, but not tell you I was joking, I have legally empowered you to buy my home.  On the other hand, if I publicly offer to sell something at a price that is "too good to be true," like brand new HDTVs for $5.99, no offer has been made at all.

I thus offer, or maybe don't, 10 Bonus Points to anyone who knew what "hornswoggle" meant without looking it up.