Judgments & Prophecies: DEMOCRACY REQUIRES DISSENTING OPINIONS

LEARNED HAND, retired chief judge of the Second Circuit United States Court of Appeals, speaking before the annual meeting in New York of the American Jewish Committee.

WHY is it that totalitarianisms arouse our deepest hostility? The best answer is not so much in their immoral quality as in the fact that they are inherently unstable because they are at war with our only trustworthy way of living in accord with the facts. For it is only by trial and error, by insistent scrutiny and by readiness to re-examine presently accredited conclusions that we...

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