Writing on Harper's Magazine, Scott Harper reminds us in the current climate of the War on Terror, as it is dubbed, and countries taking ever more action to curb freedoms we have enjoyed and the ready vilification of people not convicted - or often not even been charged - it would pay to remember the now infamous Dreyfus Affair, in France, at the end of the 19th century.
"Where today is the voice of a Clemenceau or Zola on the American political stage?
One of the key lessons of the Dreyfus experience is that in times of perceived national security crisis, the justice process often suffers in the face of perceived political exigency, and few political leaders have the fortitude to defend it. Justice too often is itself denounced as a weakness or luxury that the state cannot afford in such circumstances. History teaches another lesson: true justice, wielded forcefully, is no liability, but rather a powerful weapon in the hands of any democratic state."
"Where today is the voice of a Clemenceau or Zola on the American political stage?
One of the key lessons of the Dreyfus experience is that in times of perceived national security crisis, the justice process often suffers in the face of perceived political exigency, and few political leaders have the fortitude to defend it. Justice too often is itself denounced as a weakness or luxury that the state cannot afford in such circumstances. History teaches another lesson: true justice, wielded forcefully, is no liability, but rather a powerful weapon in the hands of any democratic state."
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