|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, January 19, 2008 :::
This article argues against special prosecutors generally, but what I find most interesting is this quote:This was exactly the type of prosecutorial danger that Attorney General (later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court) Robert Jackson warned of in a famous 1940 speech: "Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone." Ayn Rand had a quote (in Atlas Shrugged I think) that was something to the effect of ... Oh, well it must be on the web. Yeah, here we go:There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.
::: posted by dWj at 12:48 PM
|
|
|
|
