Thank you, professor
ON PROOF reading Bradley Gitz’s column the other day— you’ll find it on the opposite page in today’s paper—we had to stop halfway. Something clicked in the gray innards behind the eyes.
In short, the rule of law (and crucial constitutional expressions thereof, such as the First Amendment) constrains governments from punishing entities for their political expression, however unpopular or provocative (or however much, like Disney, they might deserve it).
Where had we heard that thought before?
Ah, yes, from one of our favorite plays, by Robert Bolt. We have a tendency to quote from it often, but this is one of the most powerful passages, and Professor Gitz reminds us of it today:
Roper: Arrest him!
Thomas More: Why, what has he done?
Alice: He’s dangerous!
Roper: For libel; he’s a spy. Alice: He is! Arrest him! Margaret: Father, that man’s bad! More: There is no law against that. Roper: There is! God’s law! More: Then God can arrest him. Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication!
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.
Roper: Then you set man’s law above God’s!
More: No, far below, but let me draw your attention to a fact—I’m not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can’t navigate. I’m no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I’m a forester. I doubt if there’s a man alive who could follow me there, thank God. Alice: While you talk, he’s gone! More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ‘round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast— man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.
—A Man for All Seasons