A Man for All Seasons - The Devil Speech

From Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons," this is Sir Thomas More's speech about the primacy of man's laws over God's laws. I feel this is especially relevant today in the torture debate and for those who would like to add the word "extralegal" to our collective vocabulary...

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Thomas More
• A Man for All Seasons
• Robert Bolt
• Law
• Free
• Speech
• Hitchens

[dniete97]

Christopher Hitchens referenced this speech in a talk he gave about hate speech laws in Canada a few years back. Too lazy to link, though. ;)

[roblyndon]

Can't help looking at this video in the light of the Snyder vs Phelps case. Glad the judges upheld the family's right to be wrong.

[dniete97]

@roblyndon You mean, the protesters' right to be wrong, yeah? 

[EdMcF1]

This speech is a simple way to test a politician for principles. If s/he poo-poos it, s/he is a budding tyrant and fraud. Many thanks for posting it.

[dniete97]

@EdMcF1 - I couldn't agree with you more.

[waremi51]

How relevant today.

[akicif]

See also the current Abu Qatada row in the UK....

[zackhanscom]

no one who is anyone of credibility seriously endorses torture. the debate is over what constitutes torture.

[kieghacat]

the best line in this movie is "when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties they lead their country by a short rout to chaos"

[Madfoot713]

damn... we need ron paul as president

[malditonuke]

@parhhesia perhaps the problem is rather how laws were made, that the system, democracy, lead to the creation of unjust laws and the putting of evil people in charge of making laws.

never trust a political system that offers power to the devil. he will take it.

[parhhesia]

@dniete97

Japan, Italy, Germany: each state fell to fascism AFTER being a democracy. While I love Thomas Moore's speech, and I generally agree with it, the truth, history shows us, is that fascists exploit the protection of law until the point when they are powerful enough to deprive everyone else of it.

Absolute rights, by definition, must be applied to the point of absurdity, so I do not believe in an absolute right to free speech. All other rights would have to be sacrificed.

[MabusZero]

The simple idea is that so long as the opponent hasn't broken the rights of speech of anyone else,they haven't broken the rights of anyone at all. The breaking of laws to protect others should not be done until absolutely necessary.

[roblyndon]

@asa1342 See, for example, J.A. Guy, “Sir Thomas More & the Heretics,” History Today 30 (February 1980). There isn't much evidence that More whipped or mistreated prisoners during their detention, but he did approve of burning them alive.

Robert Bolt's script does not tell the whole truth, but that doesn't invalidate the truth inherent in this fine speech.

[asa1342]

@ZlatyTigre What, pray-tell, proof do you have of that?

[ZlatyTigre]

The irony is that More persecuted and tortured so-called heretics, himself.