The Devil's Advocate

The reason that police and other government workers, like school teachers, are suspended with pay when they have been accused of a crime is that they haven't been convicted yet. We can't keep them on the job because there is sufficient doubt about their ability to perform it safely, but we can't punish them yet because they are innocent until proven guilty, just like everybody else.

The reason that labor unions stand up for people who are under suspicion is to insure that they get their due process. It's kind of like the concept that everybody who is put on trial for a crime must have a lawyer to represent his interests. Even if it turns out the guy is guilty, he has certain rights, and it's his lawyer's job to see that he is not illegally deprived of those rights. At a time when everybody else is mad at the accused person, somebody needs to stick up for him just to be sure that he gets a fair trial.

When the Catholic Church is considering somebody for sainthood, one priest is assigned to see if he can dig up any dirt about the candidate. This priest is called "The Devil's Advocate". He is not really on the Devil's side, but his job is to pretend that he is. The logic is that, at a time when lots of people want to make the candidate a saint, there should be at least one person who is trying to disqualify him. It's the converse of the "innocent until proven guilty" concept.

I know an interesting story about the origin of the term "Devil's advocate". I read this a long time ago in a book that was titled "The Devil's Advocate". It was a fictional novel, but there was an introduction that explained the origin of the term. It's a good story, even if it's not true. Stop me if you've heard this one:

There was a town in Scotland that was famous for it's excellent lawyers. One day somebody was able to actually capture the Devil, and the townspeople decided to put him on trial for all his sins. The problem was that no lawyer could be found who wanted to be the Devil's advocate, so it looked like the Devil would have to be set free. Finally, one lawyer volunteered to defend the Devil, only so that the trial could legally take place. The lawyer built his defense around the argument that the Devil himself never did anything wrong, he just inspired other people to do bad things. If those people had not cooperated, the Devil would have been powerless. The jury bought it, and they set the Devil free, but they hung his lawyer.

When our daughter was little, she enjoyed Christmas as much as any other kid. Indeed, she seemed to appreciate her presents more because she knew where they came from. Years later she told us that we had done the right thing telling her the truth about Santa Claus.

Maybe the reason Americans are believed to be more generous than some other people is the way our government passes out foreign aid. Most of it is connected to some kind of political agenda, and a lot of it never gets to the people for whom it was intended, but I think that we give away more money and goods than any other country. One reason might be that we have more money and goods than any other country, unless Red China has surpassed us by now. When they do, if they haven't already, I wonder if they will be as generous as we were back in the day.