Alan Dershowitz - The Case for Liberalism in an Age of Extremism: or, Why I Left the Left But Cant Join the Right

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This book is lovingly dedicated to the generation of our family that we hope will repair our broken world .

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

With a debt of gratitude to my friends and relatives who read the manuscript and offered suggestions, especially Carolyn Cohen, Elon Dershowitz, Ella Dershowitz, David Stern, Stephen Trachtenberg, Bernard Beck, George Lefcoe, Leon Chiu.

My appreciation to Tonya Lederman and Maura Kelley for their work on the manuscript and footnotes, and to my editor, Oren Eades, the cover designer, Brian Peterson, and the publisher, Tony Lyons, for their professionalism and dedication.

Copyright 2020 by Alan Dershowitz

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-5107-6298-5

eBook: 978-1-5107-6299-2

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

We are living in the most divisive era of modern American history. Our deep and dangerous divisions are moving us in the direction of the kind of malignant extremism that has plagued other countries throughout history. The left is moving further and harder left, and away from traditional liberalism. The right is moving further and harder right, and away from traditional conservatism. The center, which has long been the hallmark of the American character and the key to our success as a nation, is shrinking, and with it, our commitment to reasoned dialogue, principled compromises, tolerance of divergent views, due process of law, freedom of expression and basic fairness. We are witnessing if not the demise, then certainly the weakening, of both centrist liberalism and centrist conservatism, which have both served our nation well throughout our history.

Since I am a liberal, I will make the case in this short book for classic, centrist liberalism. I will leave it to conservatives to make the case for classic, centrist conservatism, thoughas I shall showthese philosophies are, at their core, more similar than different in many respects.

Let me be clear that I will not be making the case for the status quo , or for a return to some imaginary utopic past. For me, liberalism is a dynamic, adaptive, ever-changing process for improving the world. It must be open to positive new ideas, even some (but certainly not all) of those espoused by radicals. As a conservative critic of liberalism put it: Liberalism is a restless philosophy. It must always be doing something. To rest, or to express satisfaction with the state of things, is to become conservative.

It is this restless, dissatisfied, dynamic liberalism that I have lived and loved over my lifetime, and it is that liberalism I advocate in this book and will continue to advocate in the court of public opinion.

My own credentials as a liberal have recently been questioned, despite my life-long devotion to the cause of liberalism. It was as a liberal and civil libertarian that I opposed President Trumps impeachment, despite his illiberalism. Thats what liberals dodefend principles, not parties or persons. The attack on my liberalism does not represent a change in my philosophy, which is still what it has always been. It represents a partisan abandonment of true liberalism on the part of some who attack me, and a symptom of the divisiveness we are now experiencing.

I grew up during what I believed were very divisive times. In college, I experienced the aftermath of McCarthyism. I attended law school during the Vietnam War, provided legal assistance to those who refused to be drafted, participated in the civil rights movement, helped defend Senator Ted Kennedy after Chappaquiddick, supported the impeachment of Richard Nixon, represented O.J. Simpson in his racially fraught trial, testified against the impeachment of Bill Clinton, worked for Al Gore during the contested 2000 election, opposed the invasion of Iraq, took controversial positions on torture warrants and targeted killings in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, represented Jeffrey Epstein, and other despised defendants, and have been vocal in defense of Israel. It is fair to say that I have never shied away from controversy and have lived a highly and controversial public life, with a confrontational approach. As the Boston Globe put it: If Dershowitz is not in your face about something, its as if hes not doing his job.