What Does Democracy Demand of US?

For John, BLUF:  Democracy demands vigilance, but not paranoia.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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There has apparently been some discussion of Justice Antonin Scalia's speech on Saturday last.  Before he got to his prepared remarks he touched on a talk from the previous day.  The press suggested that the Justice has confirmed Godwin's Law, by referencing Hitler and the Nazis.  From The New York Times reporter Juliet Lapidos, says:

Justice Scalia brought Godwin’s Law to Snowmass, suggesting in an address to the Utah State Bar Association that activist judges helped bring about the Holocaust.

This is a rant against Justice Scalia, who is not a favorite in certain circles.

Of course nothing ruins a good fish story like someone who was there.  An EMail to Blogger Althouse:

On Friday morning (Day 2 of the meeting), the principal speaker was Dr. William F. Meinecke of the Holocaust Memorial Museum giving his presentation “Law, Justice, and the Holocaust: How the Courts Failed Germany.”  It is a fascinating presentation of how the Nazi party co-opted the Courts and lawyers to further its agenda against the Jews and used the judiciary to “legalize” its conduct.  [Bolded in the original]

So, Justice Scalia was making legitimate comments on the presentation of a previous speaker.  In my mind it is never to frequent when one is talking about the Holocaust and the larger question of how Germany descended into the madness that was Gestapo policed Germany from 1933 to 1945.  It wasn't just the six million Jews from across Europe who were exterminated, bad as that was.  There was also the several hundred thousand disabled human beings destroyed beginning at the time of the invasion of Poland, in September 1939.  It was German's who dissented and were beaten and tortured by the police.  Some, such as the pacifists of the White Rose movement, were executed.

Where were the lawyers who should have fought this kind of thing?  Where were the courts that allowed this to happen?

Professor Althouse says:

While the Nazi discussion did weave into his prepared remarks of about judicial “mullahs," he offered a single conclusion that is unreported by the press account before he commenced his planned speech.  He stated that educating to improve intelligence or advance culture was not education’s highest calling.  Rather, he contended that pinnacles of intellectualism, culture, and learning were meaningless unless education also instilled “virtue.”  His position was that the lack of virtue in the German elite (who were as cultured and educated as any group in the world) was their failing when confronted with the evil of the Nazis.

We rest comfortable, in the belief that it couldn't happen here.

Regards  —  Cliff