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Freedom of speech means freedom for those who you despise, and freedom to express the most despicable views. It also means that the government cannot pick and choose which expressions to authorize and which to prevent.

Alan Dershowitz

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Alan Dershowitz
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 1
Lawyer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Alan M. Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz
Cannot
Express
Also
Picks
Government
Speech
Authorize
Mean
Choose
Despicable
Expression
Expressions
Views
Despise
Freedom
Prevent
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More quotes by Alan Dershowitz

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When I decide who to vote for as President, I ask myself who will be best for America and for the world. An important component of my answer involves my assessment of the candidate's willingness and ability to protect Israel's security, since I strongly believe that a strong Israel serves the interests of the United States and of world peace.
Alan Dershowitz
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I generally don't select my chicken or my hamburgers based on the personal ideology of the person who is either flipping the hamburgers or making the money back at corporate headquarters. But if people want to do that, they're free to do it.
Alan Dershowitz
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On television and in the movies, crimes are always solved. Nothing is left uncertain. By the end, the viewer knows whodunit. In real life, on the other hand, many murders remain unsolved, and even some that are solved to the satisfaction of the police and prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to result in a conviction.
Alan Dershowitz
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The best answer to bad speech is good speech
Alan Dershowitz
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A state has the right to prohibit the killing of dogs and bears whether for film or for other purposes.
Alan Dershowitz
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Twenty five percent of Israeli citizens are not even Jewish. Anybody can become an Israeli citizen if you qualify. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship.
Alan Dershowitz
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We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States, as other countries do. Under the First Amendment, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.
Alan Dershowitz
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I think there would be less torture with a warrant requirement than without one.
Alan Dershowitz
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There is a paranoid streak in American life. Radio talk show hosts tend to foment that paranoid streak in American life.
Alan Dershowitz
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Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice and they are also the most protected.
Alan Dershowitz
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I have been defending Israel's right to exist, and to defend itself against terrorism, for many years-on college campuses, in television appearances and in debate.
Alan Dershowitz
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My goal is always to keep support for Israel a bi-partisan issue and never make a national election any kind of referendum on Israel.
Alan Dershowitz
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I am attacked equally by the hard right and the hard left for expressing what they regard as politically incorrect views. I thrive on such controversy and welcome it. It only encourages me to speak out more. I have not been affected by attacks on me for defending freedom of speech and due process.
Alan Dershowitz
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I'm worried about privacy because of the young people who don't give a damn about their privacy, who are prepared to put their entire private lives online. They put stuff on Facebook that 15 years from now will prevent them from getting the jobs they want. They don't understand that they are mortgaging their future for a quick laugh from a friend.
Alan Dershowitz
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When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum, in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today and it's called the Internet.
Alan Dershowitz
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All religions and cultures suffer from sources that preach hate against the 'other.' Throughout history some have, tragically, practiced what their sources preached, while some have sought to dismiss or even counteract the hateful words of their sources.
Alan Dershowitz
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There are two kinds of terrorism. Rational terrorism such as Palestinian terrorism and apocalyptic terrorism like Sept. 11. You have to distinguish between the two.
Alan Dershowitz
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There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.
Alan Dershowitz
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Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians.
Alan Dershowitz
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I've written important articles on prevention, on the concept of the preventive state, how the law is moving much more in an area of trying to prevent wrongs than trying to deal with them after they occur. That will be my academic/intellectual legacy.
Alan Dershowitz