Difference between Firefighters and Supreme Court Justices

Our Governor earlier this week when asked, considering that some firefighters make more then supreme court justices, are people working for the government making too much (which I say no, but that's a topic for another day) said,

"The reason why a firefighter should get paid more than a supreme court justice, or any justice is because the justice is sitting there comfortably on his bench - with tremendous amount of knowledge, not to take any thing away from a justice. He makes important decisions that effect all of us so, but one should not discount the person that goes into the fire and rescues someone and saves someone's life, risking his own life. There is a difference between that and just sitting on a bench.... The firefighters deserve every penny they earn."

Okay, let's see what's happening here. We are no longer funding higher public education in California. Law school at Davis and Berkeley are as high, if not higher, than that of private schools, with tuition at Davis about 34,000 a year. Davis estimates that the cost of books and living will put that up to about 50,000 a year. Three years, that's 150,000 worth of debt, and that's assuming you have nothing from undergraduate of course.

Now let's say I have that much debt. Am I going to want to become a justice and work for the government if they don't pay well, or am I going to take the option that will pay off my debts? Well, if I'm smart, I'll probably want to pay off my debts which is probably going to be a corporate position. Therefore, only the incompetent lawyers who couldn't go corporate and independently wealthy lawyers will have the ability to become justices. These decisions that are really important and effect us all, will be made by the worst lawyers and the lawyers that have never had to struggle for anything their entire life. Hmm, that does account for about 1/2 of our Supreme Court. I think it's shameful that our governor has no respect for intelligence and the effect these decisions have on our life. The Supreme Court, both California and federal, have saved and destroyed more than one or two lives, they affected millions. Let's give them some credit please!

Now, not to take anything away from a firefighter, but "Less than 1% of municipalities across the country require you to have a 2 or 4-year degree to take a firefighter examination."(From Don McNea Fire School). Firefighters are trained once they are accepted into the program. I'm not saying they don't deserve to get paid a lot for what they do, but let's not say they are better than a judge because a judge sits on bench and these people don't. That's just ignorant.

And what about my program? According to studies, we've saved over 1,000,000 lives - without putting ourselves in harms way - just by keeping people from smoking. Shouldn't we get something for that, oh yea, a lay-off notice. Nice work.