Alan Dershowitz, Devil incarnate
One of the things that struck me about this article excoriating Alan Dershowitz for his recent defense (not support, but defense) of Trump is that author Elie Mystal doesn’t actually engage with any arguments, nor does he cite anything Dershowitz has actually done or said that is factually or conceptually wrong.
It’s a completely ad hominem attack, as is his discussion of Trump. I assume we’re just supposed to take what the author says at face value. Or perhaps he assumes that if we’re reading him, we already agree with him.
Remember the Devil speech from “A Man For All Seasons”? I’ve posted the video many times before here. Here it is again in a shorter version:
Although Mystal went to law school (Harvard, actually) he doesn’t seem to understand the principle under which Dershowitz has been laboring lately: giving the Devil the benefit of law. But it’s really a tweet by Laurence Tribe, Harvard professor, that ties in quite well with the “Devil” speech from the Man For All seasons:
My retired former colleague seems proud of playing devil’s advocate here. But this is no game. I think he should be deeply ashamed of helping legitimate the closest thing we have to the Devil Incarnate with so absurd and dangerous an argument https://t.co/dZYuu4HTw9
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) December 7, 2017
Clearly, Tribe is on the side of Roper in the play—cutting down the law to get after the Devil, Donald Trump. This is practically demented.
Apparently, Dershowitz has offered to debate Tribe, and so far Tribe hasn’t taken him up on it, at least according to this:
Dershowitz has offered to debate you over this. What Say You? You're an attorney, trained to debate. Put up or shut up. Let's see how strong your platform is.
— Sammy Hain (@hain_sammy) December 9, 2017
They would rather not engage on the merits, because of the danger (in my opinion, the certainty) that Dershowitz would win.
Here’s what Dershowitz has to say, and to me it sounds obviously true, having following Dershowitz’s arguments and articles regarding legal issues involving the investigation of Trump:
In March, Jeffrey Toobin, a New Yorker staff writer and CNN senior legal analyst, confronted Dershowitz on TV about “carrying water” for Trump. “This is not who you used to be,” Toobin told him. “And you are doing this over and over again in situations that are just obviously ripe with conflict of interest. And it’s just, like, what’s happened with you?”
“I’m not carrying his water,” Dershowitz replied. “I’m saying exactly the same thing I’ve said for 50 years.” He echoed this response when I asked why he thought liberals were criticizing him so much. “There’s such a hyper-partisan passion to get President Trump that anything that’s seen as trying to help President Trump is seen as supporting Trump,” he said.
There’s also this:
“People can’t just accept that I’m saying what I believe and I would be saying the same thing if Hillary Clinton were president.”
And yet they can’t see it, so eager are they to cut down the law to get after the Devil. Or, if they do see it, they must block it out:
Dershowitz said he “got an email today from a very prominent friend ”” I’m not going to disclose his name because it was a private email ”” admitting that I’m right and saying ”˜My hatred toward Trump blinds me to your truths.’ That was his email. ”˜My hatred for Trump blinds me to your truths. Please stop.’
“And then he said to me, ”˜Don’t ever send me another tweet that includes an article that you wrote that helps that son of a b”‘”‘”‘”‘.’
I guess it depends what the meaning of “truth” is.
Yes, these people are demented.
For them, getting Trump—and anyone whom they perceive as defending or supporting him—is the ne plus ultra of morality. Of justice. Of patriotism.
It has become the “24/7 hate” (with the help of the media).
People who really, really ought to know better are consumed by the hatred cum crusade. But they are totally consumed.
And it’s very, very depressing.
Tribe, who is a plagiarist (like his colleague at Harvard Law Charles Ogletree), is a leftist zealot whose opinions are, almost invariably, predictable and wrong.
The problem is that liberals with fixed standards are dead (George McGovern, Nat Hentoff) or fairly elderly (Alan Dershowitz, Jerilyn Merritt). There are a few wonks like Harold Pollack who have some conception of the right and the good which they’d like to implement. As for the rest, it’s subcultural warfare nearly as pointless as that between high school cliques.
I suspect that what enrages is that Trump defies them and their media puppydogs and gets away with it. The purveyors of the call out culture have been used to abject apologies. Without them, they cannot direct public discourse.
There is a very strong tribal element to the libs going after Trump. Dershowitz, by virtue of going against the lib tribe on Trump, is considered a traitor.
One reason I left the libs was that by the time I had graduated from high school, I had come to the conclusion that group affiliation- call it tribes if you like- was a leading influence on many persons’ political opinions. Many held certain political opinions not because those political opinions were well thought out, but because those political opinions were what the “right” people believed.
It was Charles Krauthammer that diagnosed “Bush Derangement Syndrome” (BDS) about 18 years ago. I know he has been conspicuously absent from the media due to health issues, but I can’t help but wonder what he must be thinking about Trump Derangement Syndrome which is BDS^n.
Art Deco,
I think you observation is spot on. That he gets away with it and consistently appears to be the “Teflon Don” is the real challenge to their assumed power.
‘My hatred toward Trump blinds me to your truths.’ response to Dershowitz’s arguments.
That is an inevitable consequence when objective truth is rejected. Any truth contained in Dershowitz’s argument is NOT Dershowitz’s possession. They are not Dershowitz’s ‘truths’. They exist whether Dershowitz or anyone else recognizes them. “Truth” is not a politically correct opinion.
The above reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s response when asked whether Lincoln thought that God was on the North’s side;
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Tribe and others of his ilk have replaced objective truth with the consensus of the mob’s opinion.
Dershowitz is a true “liberal”, in both the classical sense and the American definition, up until the mid 2000s. Alas, he is a relic of an earlier era. “Liberalism” of the JFK, John Kenneth Galbraith, Arthur Schlesinger, Hubert Humphrey era is, at best, on life support. And, it is very unfortunate. While I consider myself consistently conservative, I (and most mainstream conservatives) could engage in productive dialogue with liberals, could understand and respective the liberal worldview. Moreover, the rapprochement was often mutual. This civil discourse was a foundation for a socio-political discourse at least since the end of WWII
It is almost entirely dead. In its place: shrill, irreconcilable shrieking from various strains of cultural Marxist, intersectional identitarians, “democratic” socialists, Antifa, etc. on the left and a grotesque cavalcade of “Alt-right” ideologues on the right. Though a vast majority of Americans are not inclined towards either polarity, they are drawn to support “their side” without question, because they’re convinced the other side must be destroyed at all costs.
One cannot help but feel nothing but pessimism about where all of this is heading
The writer of the article calls everyone who doesn’t equate Trump with Hitler “trash people.” What can you do with someone who thinks like that?
And what is it that they hate? The reductions in joblessness? The rate of business growth and expansion? The acknowledgement and rejection of meaningless international agreements (see: Paris Climate Accord)? The engagement with North Korea on denuclearization?
No, it is none of those rhetorically posed questions. They hate him because he is not them. They hate him because he will not kowtow to them. They hate him because he speaks in a way they consider vulgar.
They must be stopped from thwarting what Trump seeks to do for America and its people. And then they should be ignored.
Imagine one Nazi writing to another — “I hate Jews so much, I am blind to the truth about them”.
Current Democrats would all have been happy Jew-hating Nazis were they in Germany after 1933 or so.
They hated Bush, hated Reagan, hated Nixon; hate Palin, hate Ivanka Trump; hated Romney & hated McCain (until they lost). The only good Rep is one who is saying how bad other Reps are.
Totalitarian supporters, and tribalists, understand the importance and emotion-enhancing effects of being mean to the other tribe, and hating the other tribe.
There needs to be a new anti-discrimination office for education non-profits which has the power to end tax-free status of rich colleges that discriminate against Republicans.
Most current colleges are doing more indoctrination, not education.
Go Dersh! :>)))
I wish Prof. Tribe would take him up on the debate offer. And I want to watch. :>)
.
Actually, this seems to me to be a laudably candid and self-knowing acknowledgement of a fact of the tweeter’s mentality. And the request is perfectly civil.
Tom G said:
“They hated Bush, hated Reagan, hated Nixon; hate Palin, hate Ivanka Trump; hated Romney & hated McCain (until they lost). The only good Rep is one who is saying how bad other Reps are.”
~~
What I’ve taken away from all of this is that “they” really hate me. They can’t openly hate 50% of the population, so they hate those who are our ‘leaders’.
I have long respected Dershowitz, even when I sharply disagreed. Lately my respect grows.
“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, they left me.” — RR
Other than now I can’t think of a time I agreed with Allen Dershowitz. I was in the middle of writing a treatise about the Laws Of Armed Conflict and the difference between a ruse and perfidy. How one is allowed, the other not.
Then my screen went blank and I took that as God’s way of saying, “Shut up!”
So now I’ll cut to the chase. Isn’t Tribe saying that Trump doesn’t deserve the benefit of counsel? And doesn’t that violate a basic tenet of American law? Even the worst accused criminal deserves an attorney and that attorney owes the criminal the most vigorous defense possible.
Truth is spelled with a capital “T”. Truth is absolute.
The Leftist malignancy is of course devoted to relative truth, with a small “t”, adjustable on demand or necessity. They are Stalinists.
Geoffrey Britain, above, is absolutely correct.
As to truth, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, had this to say in 1981:
“as long as people suppress the truth but do not succeed in doing away with it, and as long as they are suffering from this suppressed truth–it will be one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit to “convince the world of sin” (John 16:8). It is not a question here of making people’s lives unpleasant and of fettering them with restrictions and negations but rather simply of leading them to the truth and thus healing them.”
Would it were so!
Actually, I have a problem with the video clip (which has become become ubiquitous).
The problem is that Dershowitz (and others) is/are NOT the Devil.
The problem is that he/they are perceived to be the Devil by people who have become deranged by hatred and call it morality.
More like Miller’s “The Crucible” turned on its head.
My father was a liberal and a Keynesian economist, and would always take the kind position of Dershowitz is taking. He would often make the point with the old saw – I disagree with everything you say but would defend to the death your right to say it. I agree with Frog above – the difference between liberals the current left is that they have become Stalinists in the sense that the end always justifies any means. I think they are quite unconscious and would vigorously deny it, but it is arguable that Marxism has become the lens through which about half the population views their world. Jordan Peterson’s lectures on the combination of postmodernism and neo Marxism that dominates the universities exposes it well worth the time.Tribalism is also part of it as others have mentioned. Given the carnage nationalism caused in the two world wars internationalism has been put forward as the remedy since Wilson and abysmally failed. But the left still believes devoutly in it and thinks it is promoting it and does not notice it has fallen into tribalism – which is a lower and more primitive form than nationalism. Next stop on the descent into Hell is savagery. I doubt Alan Dershowitz’s upper class friends on Martha’s Vineyard will tear him to pieces and drink his blood, but antifa is working itself up it as Bill Ayers and his friends did in the 60’s.
Faith2014 Says:
June 2nd, 2018 at 9:16 pm
What I’ve taken away from all of this is that “they” really hate me. They can’t openly hate 50% of the population, so they hate those who are our ‘leaders’.
* * *
Hillary was pretty open about it – so are most of the DNC and the Dems in Congress – although, technically, her statement was actually directed to only a half of the half of the population; I think her percentage of deplorables has gone up since then, though.
In fact, I can’t think of many on the Left who are h8ing our “leaders” who aren’t also pretty open about hating us “followers” as well – even if the “leaders” aren’t necessarily leading and some of us aren’t following.
So I went to the linked article.
Oh.
My.
God.
That-right-there is nuclear-weapons-grade TDS. SCARY. (And, how many other supposedly-rational-actors have this same warped view? James Hodgkinson -the guy who targeted Republicans practicing baseball and nearly killed Steve Scalise- has already demonstrated that this is a Real Thing.)
That poor man (Elie Mystal) needs to be under medical/ psychiatric supervision. (And should have no access to firearms, gasoline, or sharp pointy objects.)
A_Nonny_Mouse:
Nail. Head. Bullseye.
I read that Mistal piece. What a scary loony tune. Then it dawned on me that this is what they all think of us. I’m staying in the closet… they’re frighteningly unhinged.
At the time of the Nazi takeover in 1933, Sebastian Haffner was a young lawyer working at the Prussian Supreme Court, the Kammergericht:
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When Law Yields to Absolute Power
Posted by David Foster on July 18th, 2013 (All posts by David Foster)
Three years ago, I reviewed the important and well-written memoirs of Sebastian Haffner, who grew up in Germany between the wars. I think the state of affairs in America today makes it appropriate to re-post some excerpts from the review and from the book.
In 1933, when Hitler became Chancellor, Haffner was working as a junior lawyer (refendar) in the Prussian High Court, the Kammergericht. He was comforted by the continuity of the legal process:
The newspapers might report that the constitution was in ruins. Here every paragraph of the Civil Code was still valid and was mulled over and analyzed as carefully as ever…The Chancellor could daily utter the vilest abuse against the Jews; there was nonetheless still a Jewish Kammergerichtsrat (high court judge) and member of our senate who continued to give his astute and careful judgments, and these judgments had the full weight of the law and could set the entire apparatus of the state in motion for their enforcement—even if the highest office-holder of that state daily called their author a ‘parasite’, a ‘subhuman’ or a ‘plague’.
In spring of that year, Haffner attended Berlin’s Carnival—an event at which one would find a girlfriend or boyfriend for the night and exchange phone numbers in the morning…”By then you usually know whether it is the start of something that you would like to take further, or whether you have just earned yourself a hangover.” He had a hard time getting in the Carnival mood, however:
All at once I had a strange, dizzy feeling. I felt as though I was inescapably imprisoned with all these young people in a giant ship that was rolling and pitching. We were dancing on its lowest, narrowest deck, while on the bridge it was being decided to flood that deck and drown every last one of us.
…..
Though it was not really relevant to current events, my father’s immense experience of the period from 1870 to 1933 was deployed to calm me down and sober me up. He treated my heated emotions with gentle irony…It took me quite a while to realize that my youthful excitability was right and my father’s wealth of experience was wrong; that there are things that cannot be dealt with by calm skepticism.
On March 31st, the Nazis came to the Kammergericht. Haffner was in the library, reading some document on which he had to give an opinion. There was a clatter of footsteps in the corridor, shouts, and doors banging. Brown uniforms surged in, and the leader announced that all “non-Aryans” must leave immediately. One brown shirt approached Haffner and asked “Are you Aryan?”
Before I had a chance to think, I had said, ‘Yes.’ He took a close look at my nose—and retired. The blood shot to my face. A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat….I had failed my very first test.
“As I left the Kammergericht it stood there, grey, cool and calm as ever, set back from the street in its distinguished setting. There was nothing to show that, as an institution, it had just collapsed.”
“It was strange to sit in the Kammergericht again, the same courtroom, the same seats, acting as if nothing had happened. The same ushers stood at the doors and ensured, as ever, that the dignity of the court was not disturbed. Even the judges were for the most part the same people. Of course, the Jewish judge was no longer there. He had not even been dismissed. He was an old gentleman and had served under the Kaiser, so he had been moved to an administrative position at some Amtsgericht (lower court). His position on the senate was taken by an open-faced, blond young Amtsgerichtsrat, with glowing cheeks, who did not seem to belong among the grave Kammergerichtsrats…It was whispered that in private the newcomer was something high up in the SS.”
The new judge didn’t seem to know much about law, but asserted his points in a “fresh, confident voice.”
“We Refendars, who had just passed our exams, exchanged looks while he expounded. At last the president of the senate remarked with perfect politeness, ‘Colleague, could it be that you have overlooked paragraph 816 of the Civil Code?’ At which the new high court judge looked embarrassed…leafed through his copy of the code and then admitted lightly, ‘Oh, yes. Well, then it’s just the other way around.’ Those were the triumphs of the older law.
There were, however, other cases—cases in which the newcomer did not back down…stating that here the paragraph of the law must yield precedence; he would instruct his co-judges that the meaning was more important than the letter of the law…Then, with the gesture of a romantic stage hero, he would insist on some untenable decision. It was piteous to observe the faces of the older Kammergerichtsrats as this went on. They looked at their notes with an expression of indescribable dejection, while their fingers nervously twisted a paper-clip or a piece of blotting paper. They were used to failing candidates for the Assessor examination for spouting the kind of nonsense that was now being presented as the pinnacle of wisdom; but now this nonsense was backed by the full power of the state, by the threat of dismissal for lack of national reliability, loss of livelihood, the concentration camp…They begged for a little understanding for the Civil Code and tried to save what they could.”
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/37479.html
something went wrong with the cut & paste on my previous comment…sorry
The first rule of liberalism is that divergence is progressive. Dershowitz’s “classical” liberalism is principled or conservative, and therefore inconvenient and intolerable. He needs to receive the twilight faith and embrace the Pro-Choice religious/moral philosophy.
Too many people have a side they support and will defend it no matter what the facts may reveal. In a adversary environment, this is the norm, and to be expected.
Mr Dershowitz is acting more like a Judge and holding up a principle rather than taking sides.
I do not agree with many of his political positions, but he is a principled person, who upholds his personal and professional integrity. This is a trait that we could use much more in our Country.
a grotesque cavalcade of “Alt-right” ideologues on the right.
I have my doubts as to how many constitute the “cavalcade.” There seems to be two things going on at the same time. There is a pushback against the demonization of all whites. There is also some pushback against the demonization of young men.
In Charlottesville, there was a march of young white men who were chanting “You will not replace us.” The news media reported this as “Jews will not replace us.” Listen to the video and see if you agree with me that the media lied to further demonize those young men.
The so-called leader of the march is a young man whose previous media presence was as a leftist leader of the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations. He is a classic agent provocateur.
Lets call it a near miracle that we elected the one man on the planet who could expose the carefully camouflaged progressive rage against free people. Getting this out for all to see has been long overdue.
It may be scary but its very necessary.
Well. what are you expecting when the colleges teach that truth is relative. We can all have our own truth.
Isn’t it funny that of all the people Alan Dershowitz has worked with – Claus von Bulow, Leona Helmsley, OJ Simpson – it his (unsolicited) defense of Donald Trump that has his former colleague rattled? I guess every citizen deserves a competent defense lawyer *except* Donald Trump.
Art Deco is right, but I’d go further: Trump is the “Devil incarnate” because he not only defies them, he fights back; he trips them up on their own rules & tactics. They self-destruct in a fit of rage. Kathy Griffin said it best, “He broke me.” It is amazing to watch, and an unexpected bonus of his presidency (I had expected his love of spats to kill his candidacy. Wrong!).
“I have my doubts as to how many constitute the “cavalcade.” ”
One thing I found notably lacking in most of the coverage of Charlottesville is any accounting of how many “alt-right” were in attendance vs. the opposition (“alt-left”, antifa or whatever). My suspicion is that an honest count would tend to diminish the hysterical narrative of the supposed rising tide of white supremacism.
David Foster Says:
June 3rd, 2018 at 8:22 am
something went wrong with the cut & paste on my previous comment…sorry
* * *
I recall reading that article some other time that you linked it, and was very impressed by its timely relevance.
I haven’t gone near anything Mystal wrote since he bragged about not paying off his student loans.
Oh dear, was that an ad hom?
I see you have had the good sense not to waste years of your time “debating” the Right to Keep and Bear Arms with ardent restrictionists and political progressives.
They that is, who believe that both the kind of law which regulates and limits the forms which ordinary law may take (i.e. constitutional laws and principles) and supporters of the same, are an impediment to modern social evolution and human progress.
“Gap-toothed Neanderthals”, “Cretins”, “fearful, sexually bigoted morons”, “slated for extinction and not a moment too soon”, “perverts in love with killing machines” and “death deserving reactionary trash”, is some of the more printable terminology.
Little attempt to hide the hate, or death wishes for political opponents, there.
After awhile you react to it with an indifferent shrug, and reply relentlessly on point instead.
Which enrages them all the more.