Bill Adler The Wit

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.Their policies will inevitably result in a lesser America, and have already meant a growing gulf between rich and poor.—Speech, “Creating a Genuine‘Opportunity Society,’” March 1, 2004More than any of our Presidents, John Adams secured the institutions of the freedoms and the democracy that we have enjoyed for many generations of Americans.John Adams helped bind an emerging young nation by appointing George Washington, a southerner, to lead the largely northern Continental Army—one of the first acts of national unity.… John Adams laid the basis for our independent judiciary by appointing John Marshall to the Supreme Court.From his influence on the Constitution, his belief in the importance of a bicameral legislature, his insistence on a separation of powers and an independent judiciary—to his service as the nation’s first Vice-President and second President—Adams’ marks on our political institutions and judicial system are unique in our nation’s history.—Statement Proposing a National Memorialin Honor of President John Adams,April 5, 2001The fall of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of this century is widely attributed to the excesses of a top-heavy civil service and a system of administrative regulation imposed by a bureaucracy run wild.The traditional American reaction to a problem or abuse has been to say, “There ought to be a law.” But now, as we survey the complex legal framework of the nation, we should also be prepared to say of many areas, “There ought not to be a law.”—Speech, June 14, 1979It is time for all governments, political leaders and peoples everywhere to recognize the Armenian Genocide.These annual commemorations are an effective way to pay tribute to the courage and suffering and triumph of the Armenian people, and to ensure that such atrocities will never happen again to any people on earth.—Statement on the 86th Anniversaryof the Armenian Genocide,April 4, 2001Even without the bonds of blood and history, the deepening tragedy of Ulster today would demand that voices of concerned Americans everywhere be raised against the killing and the violence in Northern Ireland, just as we seek an end to brutality and repression everywhere.… Ulster is becoming Britain’s Vietnam.—Senate address, October 20, 1971Perhaps never before in the history of the world has there been an emblem so full of the great aspirations of all men everywhere as the flag of the United States.… The flag our forebears received at their citizenship ceremony initiated them into the life of love and freedom, and they went forth to build a new nation.Our common aspirations today are as boundless as the mind of man.… They exceed even the deepest divisions of our time, because they reflect the timeless quest of men to be free, to live in a society that is open, where the principles of freedom and justice and equality prevail.—Fourth of July Address, Wakefield, MA, 1970Rarely if ever in our history have private-interest groups been better organized, better financed, or more resistant to the force of change.It was Lord Bryce who commented in the Nineteenth Century that American government was all engine and no brakes.Today it could be said … that our government is all brakes and no engine.—Speech, September 22, 1978What we do in the outside world must be based on a deep moral sense of our purpose as a nation.Without that sense of our enduring heritage—the values on which this nation was founded, the basic compassion and human concerns of our people—there is little we can do both for ourselves and for others.American involvement in the outside world must reflect what is best in our heritage and what is best in ourselves.—Speech, June 14, 1976ON THE CONSTITUTION ANDEQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAWIF TED KENNEDY HAD NOT BEEN A SENATOR, WHAT A great Supreme Court justice he might have made!Looking over his lifetime of work, we find a dazzling array of writings on law and justice, many worthy of a legal scholar, but never as dusty and dry as the work so often found in academic journals.He combined the scholar’s breadth of knowledge with the advocate’s passion, standing up for causes and principles in the style of a committed courtroom defender speaking for an embattled innocent.We saw this quality in him in the way he questioned nominees for attorney general who struck him as insufficiently committed to the preservation of our essential liberties.He took with utmost seriousness his charge as a senator to deliver to the president his best advice when it came to selection of justices for the highest court in the land; he would not consent to the appointment of anyone whose interpretation of the Constitution he found rigid and literalistic, unappreciative of the spirit of the founders’ vision.At the same time he courageously opposed movements, however popular they may have been, to tinker with the Constitution unnecessarily: He believed that the American flag stood for free speech and that an amendment to restrict that speech honors neither the flag nor the Constitution.Nor would he sit silent as opponents of gay rights proposed to write their hostility to gay relationships into the Constitution in the form of a “traditional marriage” amendment.Each time the rights of a segment of our society have come under fire, Senator Kennedy was right there, returning fire—defending civil rights for racial minorities, civil liberties for victims of profiling, equality for women, fair treatment of immigrants—and kept at it, right till the end.John F.Kennedy once observed that “life is unfair,” and that is certainly indisputable.But it is also true that life in America today is now to some degree a little less unfair due to his brother Teddy’s lifetime of work for “justice for all.”Words [in the Constitution] are fine, but it has to be what a generation reads into those words.—Speech to studentsat Boston Latin Public High School,April 29, 2002Equal justice under law is not just a phrase carved in marble [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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