ABSTRACT
It is important to know when we are being gulled, manipulated, and duped. 1 It is even more important to know when we are unwittingly doing this to ourselves—when we are using shopworn legal scripts and counterscripts, going around endlessly in circles, getting nowhere. 2 Understanding how we use predictable arguments to rebut other predictable arguments in a predictable sequence—"The plaintiff should have the freedom to do X," "No, the defendant should have the security not to have X done to her"; "The law should be flexible, permitting us to do justice in particular cases," "No, the law must be determinate; only bright-line rules are administrable and safe" 3 —frees us to focus on real-world questions that do matter. We can begin to see how what we do as citizens, lawyers, and legal scholars advances or retards causes we hold dear. We can see where the scripts come from and, perhaps, how to write new and better ones.
