Alan Dershowitz Quotes
I've written important articles on prevention, on the concept of the preventive state, how the law is moving much more in an area of trying to prevent wrongs than trying to deal with them after they occur. That will be my academic/intellectual legacy.
Dershowitz, Alan. Preemption: A Knife That Cuts Both Ways. W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.
This quotation not only illustrates the typical Southern attitude at the time as the issue of Slavery began to be the subject of Federal governmental debate, but it also illustrates the incredible party flip flops over time. Ritchie was one of the leading Democratic Politicians of his day, and it was the Democrats who were opposed to Government. However, people without a knowledge of early American History might think that this quotation came from right wing Republicans of the early 21st century. By then, it was the Democrats who saw the important role of government. The Democrats were then extreme enemies of the Federal Government and were against freedom for Blacks and their rights, that the Republican Party was created and used government more than most Americans ever thought possible, ended slavery and permitted Negro voting and equality. Almost 200 years later it was the Democrats who were espousing the old Republican Views, and the Republicans holding the old Democratic view of government and adopting a more passive view on racial equality and justice.
Trashing government’s ability to do things was not new to the Ronald Reagan era and after. It had a long history.
Ironically, he had to drop out of the presidential nomination race because he was immersed in a personal scandal that erupted. He could not cope with it. Had he taken his own advice and dealt with it BEFORE the crises erupted, he might have weathered the storm. But he waited and was caught flat-footed.
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law, and for controversial political views.
