Comments on: On free speech: from Robert Reich, Yale Law School graduate

By: Despatches #1 — “Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”

Despatches #1 — “Because it’s judgment that defeats us.” — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 21:11:55 +0000

[…] of well-aged brain farts. That’s okay since he means less today that Keith Olbermann. On free speech: from Robert Reich, Yale Law School graduate ||| But the more interesting part of Rei… Again we have the strange definition of “dangerous,” which seems to mean “anything I don’t […]

By: Cappy

Cappy — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 15:49:14 +0000

Don’t crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers.

By: Richard Cook

Richard Cook — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 12:12:52 +0000

This is what happens when you do not fight back. The long march through the institution began in the 50’s with its culmination in what we have today. Reich is a small part of that, yet, a dedicated part. Colleges and governments long ago were converted to reeducation camps and purveyors of ideological propaganda. I sure don’t know how to stop this.

By: quiet conservative

quiet conservative — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 23:03:48 +0000

I was very surprised when Reich, whom I always considered to be something of an esteemed individual, started opining on issues related to freedom of speech. That shows how naive I am. The elitist mentality exemplified by Reich is probably par for the course within the leadership of the Democratic party. The party I grew up with is truly gone forever. Time to wake up.

By: Kustie The Klown

Kustie The Klown — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 19:56:57 +0000

WRONG. You have fully vested, 1000 percent constitutional protection to absolutely and flagrantly lie through your teeth, if that’s what you want to do.

It’s just as constitutionally protected as any other speech.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 19:51:31 +0000

Yes, you could say that. Reich 40 years ago was a policy journalist. He favored the Democratic Party, but he was not a purveyor of talking points. Even 20 years ago, he had some critical distance from Bill Clinton, even though he’d worked for him and was at the edges of the Clintons’ circle of friends.

I don’t know which one was smarter. They had quite different interests. Dershowitz is a law professor, working lawyer, and public advocate. Reich has a long history as a law professor playing a business school professor.

By: neo

neo — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 18:59:57 +0000

Art Deco; Marv:

To me the biggest difference between Reich and Dershowitz is that the former is a Party man through and through, following the latest Democrat talking points. The latter thinks for himself and goes his own way. Conformist vs nonconformist, and willingness to jettison principles vs. sticking to principles wherever it leads him.

IMHO Dershowitz is also much much smarter.

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 18:12:56 +0000

Cast your mind back about 40 years; did he make “sense” then?

Yes he did. Retrospectively, I think his pieces we’re ill considered and, if you run through them, invalid. An invalid argument is not a nonsensical argument.

By: Cicero

Cicero — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 16:42:13 +0000

Art Deco sez “Reich has stopped making sense”. Really? Cast your mind back about 40 years; did he make “sense” then?

By: Art Deco

Art Deco — Sun, 18 Dec 2022 16:23:27 +0000

I have, now & then, confused Robert Reich and Alan Dershowitz. A bit absurd, right?

They were both on the Harvard Law faculty, both are Jews, and both have facial hair. Dershowitz is more flamboyant.

Dershowitz is eight years older than Reich, is a specialist in constitutional law and criminal defense, and has always had a wider and more vernacular audience (newspaper columns, trade books); he generally stays in his lane as a purveyor of opinion. He’s also kept his hand in as a working lawyer, doing both trial and appellate practice. Dershowitz I’m wagering has a great deal of entree, but he’s never been an insider to the same degree as Reich is. Dershowitz is also a vociferous Zionist; he did not intermarry.

Reich’s general audience writing has been for tonier publications with smaller circulation (he was a regular at The New Republic back in the day); a great deal was outside his wheelhouse and ill-advised for that reason. Reich was a Rhodes Scholar and fairly well connected, being a veteran of both the Carter and Clinton administrations. AFAICR, Israel and the Jewish experience are not subjects Reich ever addresses; he had two children with his estranged wife; she’s gentile. He was once general-counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, but I don’t believe he’s been a working lawyer since. (He left that job in 1981).

It’s not surprising that one of these men has thoughts which are less regime-compliant than the other. What is surprising is that Reich has stopped making sense, and Dershowitz hasn’t.