National Laws Quotes
The most commonly cited part of this quote is in bold. The full quote is provided for context.
Senior civil judge in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales
In the particular case, the issue was whether the businessmen of our French allies should suffer from a devaluation of American currency that was then contemplated. American merchants would pay for goods in devalued currency and pay back loans with the same. Americans, and most other trading nations, have been on both sides of this issue ever since as a function of the specifics of the issues and the times.
The Judge, a fundamentalist Christian, unilaterally had a large granite monument of the Ten Commandments installed in the Rotunda of the Supreme Court Building. A Federal Judge in deciding a lawsuit ordered him to remove the monument which was held to have been placed there to symbolically uphold the supremacy of the Judeo-Christian tradition in our legal system. Judge Moore appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court which let the removal decision stand. However, the judge still resisted. The other 8 Alabama Supreme Court justices then removed the Chief Justice and ordered the monument removed. Moore who had been selected to office in a “Bible-Belt State,” still blocked the removal forcing a showdown with the Federal Courts and his colleagues in Alabama. Shortly thereafter, both the monument and Judge Moore were removed.
The Egyptian Army, responding to huge demonstrations, ordered the Muslim Brotherhood President to step down in what appeared to be a coup d’etat. There was an American law that required a cut off of foreign aid to any government that had come to power. The American Administration and most of Congress did not want to terminate foreign aid to Egypt, and announced that it could not come to a conclusion as to whether or not there was a coup. They did not say that there was no coups—they just decided not to decide. Since there was no finding of a coups, there was no cutoff. Senator Paul and a few other Senators, observing that there had been a coup, wanted the administration to cut off the foreign aid even though it would be detrimental to our foreign policy. The government must obey the law they argued, regardless of the consequences.
