When people voice their disgust with the legal system, it’s not merely because of such obvious miscarriages of justice as O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony being found not guilty by a jury of their (really stupid) peers or the nuisance lawsuits filed against doctors, forcing them to insist on unnecessary tests and procedures simply to protect their heinies; it’s because lawsuits have become so numerous and absurd, it’s become the equivalent of trick-or-treating for grown-ups.

A while back, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce listed the most ridiculous lawsuits of the past year. The following are the four that got the most votes: A convict sued a couple he had kidnapped for not helping him evade the police; a woman sued over a preview for the movie, “Drive,” because the coming attraction didn’t show enough driving; a woman disagreed with a store over an 80-cent refund and, so, sued for five million dollars; a man suing for age discrimination, after losing his case, then sued claiming the judge in the case was too old!

The one thing I’m certain of is that the Chamber of Commerce had a hard time choosing from among thousands of similar lame-brained lawsuits. The fact that there are hordes of these people among us is no surprise. After all, who did you think was voting for the community organizer in 2008? But the fact that these people have no problem finding lawyers to represent them strongly suggests that the ethical standards of the American Bar Association are every bit as lax as those of the Democratic National Committee.

A lot of people I hear from like to quote Thomas Jefferson’s line about refreshing liberty with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants, but, unlike them, I like to believe he was referring to foreign invaders. When people quote those words today, I don’t think about the American Revolution, but about the Civil War, the conflict that left 620,000 of our fellow Americans dead at places like Shiloh, Antietam and Gettysburg. So, no matter how lousy I believe Barack Obama is, I’m not prepared to spill the blood of my fellow Americans over an honest difference of opinion. November 6 isn’t that far off. Unlike the unfortunate folks in Egypt, Iran, Russia, North Korea and Libya, we have an easy way of ridding ourselves of tyrants and would-be tyrants.

One of the issues that divides most Americans is welfare. The dole, as it was better known during the Great Depression, was introduced by FDR and his fellow New Deal liberals in Congress. As originally conceived, it was intended to be a solution to a temporary problem. Instead, once the Democrats realized how easy it was to buy votes with tax dollars, it became a permanent problem with, even 80 years later, no solution in sight.

I know that Clinton and Gingrich are still taking bows for reforming welfare back in the 1990s, but they hardly scratched the surface. Of course these days, with the expanding numbers of public sector union members, nobody refers to enormous out-of-control pensions as welfare, but, euphemistically, as entitlements. But it is welfare, nonetheless, and its purpose now, as it was then, is to garner votes for liberal politicians.

Speaking of liberals, every time you hear one of them wail against photo IDs for voters, you know what they are really grousing about is that it would make it harder to cheat at election time. As usual, they, along with Eric Holder, try to pass off their criminal activities as compassion for young people and members of the black and Hispanic communities, pretending that photo IDs would disenfranchise millions of potential voters. On the face of it, it’s such blatant hypocrisy that only born liars and cheaters like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, would even pay it lip service.

After all, as everyone knows, photo IDs are required if you want to drive a car, get on a plane or buy a six-pack of Bud. But the other day, the liberals in the Illinois legislature drove the point home when they passed a state law requiring that anyone who wanted to buy drain cleaner or any other caustic substance provide a photo ID.

While it figures that in Illinois, the state where governors regularly wind up in jail and dead people get to continue voting for Democrats, honest elections would not be a priority. Still, even in Chicago, it requires a monumental dose of cynicism to suggest that maintaining eternal vigilance over the sanctity of the hardware store trumps that of the voting booth.