Jackson SCt. opinion mentions of Nazi Germany/Hitler

[John Barrett]

Michael, thanks for making this point.  I'll add that Justice Jackson's
concurring opinion in Youngstown was not the only one, post-1945, in
which he mentioned, in a case concerning non-German issues, Nazi
Germany.  Each of these instances may have been the former chief U.S.
prosecutor at Nuremberg making a well-informed, careful point or
engaging in exaggerated, inapposite rhetoric.  Instead of dismissing
these and all "Nazi," "fascist," etc. invocations out-of-hand, don't we
know enough, legally and historically, to assess unto themselves, on
their own words and in the contexts where they have been made?  Isn't
refusing to do so just as, well, lazy as the practice, in argument, of
resorting to simplistic name-calling?

 

John Q. Barrett

St. John's University School of Law & the Robert  H. Jackson Center

Homepage
<http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/law/faculty/profiles/Barrett>


Archive of Jackson Email List postings
<http://www.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/law/faculty/profiles/Barrett/
JacksonList.sju> 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Curtis, Michael K. [mailto:curtismk at wfu.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 7:24 PM
To: Sanford Levinson; Kurt.Lash at lls.edu
Cc: CONLAWPROF at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: RE: forwarding

 

...

 

In the Steel Seizure Case Justice Jackson suggests not that Truman is a
Hitler-of course not-but that unchecked executive power is a grave
danger to liberty because of the danger of serious abuse & he cites
Hitler.  Does he therefore lose?  The framers of the European Convention
on Human Rights cited the Nazi example in insisting on the need for
guarantees of liberty.  Do they therefore lose?   

 

Michael Kent Curtis

 

 

----- Original Message -----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
<conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu>
Cc: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu <conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Thu Apr 05 15:12:00 2007
Subject: Re: RE: Happy birthday, Thomas Hobbes

Regarding attempts to link VP Cheney and the work of Prof's Yoo and
Paulsen to Carl Schmitt:

My daughter tells me that out of her many on-line debates over
religion, politics and the Constitution, a rule has emerged:  Whoever
cries "Nazi" first loses the argument.

I think it's a good rule.

Kurt Lash
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

 

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