I'll suggest a few reasons. Lawyers and the legal system are given a bad name when:

• a judge doesn't think a person who's conned the locksmith into giving him a key to the house he was just locked out of is dangerous
  
• a judge doesn't think the same person's trying to break through a locked door with a chair is dangerous
  
• a lawyer is given the responsibility for conducting an investigation, but her "investigation" consists solely of listening to one side of the story and basing her decision on that
  
• consequences for bad behavior are nowhere to be seen.
  
• orders of the court are a joke; forget enforcing them, even getting the court to hear them can take years
  
• a magistrate comments that a comment "I'm going to kill you" was taken out of context, and isn't worth worrying about because it's a family matter.
  
• being reasonable is not rewarded
  
• the victim who indicates abuse is ocurring is penalized.
  
• it's OK if one in four emails are abusive. (The fatality rate for a gunshot is 1 in 11.)

This is happening, folks. There are studies to back it up. It's an epidemic.

And it's happening in our own backyards. Now. Here. America, 2005.

I've seen it.

And the biggest problem is, no one is talking about it.

I'm going to talk about it.

Titles in the above will be supplemented with names, places, dates, and where you can go to verify this in the public record.

The President is thrilled about tort reform. Saves corporations money.

Want to save them some more cash, W? High medical costs and diminished productivity related to domestic violence costs American corporations between $3 and 5 billion a year.

But it's easier to believe it's not happening to people like us. People who do bad things are punished, right? All that's stuff's so messy and grubby and icky, we'd rather not get involved.

Surprise. You're involved. You're paying for it. Sooner or later, it could be your daughter, your sister, a friend.

And you'll say, "It'll be okay. They won't let someone get away with this."

You can either learn then, or you can learn now.

My vote is for now. 'Cause enough people have learned the other way, and it's plain wrong.