Lawyers Try to "Understand" Ahmadinejad

There is often an otherworldly aspect in the ruminations of lawyers and professors, and they get particularly esoteric when they are law professors.

So we have a discussion what it mean when Ahmadinejad claimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran, and furthermore that

a current professor at Columbia has argued that there are no homosexuals in the entire Arab world, except for a few who have been brainwashed into believing they have a homosexual identity by an aggressive Western homosexual missionizing movement he calls "Gay International."

I always like reading the comments that follow, such as:

Elliott, thanks for the correction. On your other point, Ahmadinejad also clearly didn't mean that no one in Iran ever engages in homosexual activity. But he actually goes less far than Massad, because he just claims the category of homosexual doesn't exist in Iran. Massad acknowledges that it does exist in the Arab world, but claims that it has nothing to with self-actualization/realization, and everything to do with Western cultural imperialism, against which oppression of homosexuals is apparently just proper cultural self-defense.

But in the end I am reminded of this joke I posted recently:

A priest, a lawyer and an engineer are sentenced to death. The priest is asked whether he would like to face the guillotine face up or face down. He chooses face up. The blade starts down and stops inches from the priest’s neck. Thinking it is a sign from God, the executioner sets him free.

Next it’s the lawyer’s turn. He also chooses face up and the blade again stops just short of his neck. He too is set free.

Last, it’s the engineer’s turn. Like those before him he chooses face up. As the executioner reaches to release the blade, suddenly the engineer blurts out, “Wait, I think I see your problem!”

There is in certain professions a dreamlike escape from reality.