(27:14 - 30:35 ) There's a compelling scene from the 1966 movie, "A Man for all Seasons" that makes your point very powerfully about the danger of subverting the courts and the law:
Sir Thomas More, Chancellor to Henry VIII, is being strongly urged by several members of his family to have his former student - and potential traitor - arres…
(27:14 - 30:35 ) There's a compelling scene from the 1966 movie, "A Man for all Seasons" that makes your point very powerfully about the danger of subverting the courts and the law:
Sir Thomas More, Chancellor to Henry VIII, is being strongly urged by several members of his family to have his former student - and potential traitor - arrested. Amid demands such as, "Arrest him!", ... That man's bad!", ... "He's dangerous!", and "He's a spy!", More argues against acting without proof ... His wife says, "While you talk he's gone!!", to which More replies, "And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!"
Will Roper, his somewhat hot-headed son in law, snaps back, "So now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
More (standing up): "Oh, and when the last law was down, and the Devil turns round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast: Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? .... Yes, I give the Devil the benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
(27:14 - 30:35 ) There's a compelling scene from the 1966 movie, "A Man for all Seasons" that makes your point very powerfully about the danger of subverting the courts and the law:
Sir Thomas More, Chancellor to Henry VIII, is being strongly urged by several members of his family to have his former student - and potential traitor - arrested. Amid demands such as, "Arrest him!", ... That man's bad!", ... "He's dangerous!", and "He's a spy!", More argues against acting without proof ... His wife says, "While you talk he's gone!!", to which More replies, "And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!"
Will Roper, his somewhat hot-headed son in law, snaps back, "So now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
More: Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: "Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!"
More (standing up): "Oh, and when the last law was down, and the Devil turns round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast: Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? .... Yes, I give the Devil the benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
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