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...

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  News & Politics

[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]

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]

- I couldn't agree with you more. 

[waremi51]

How relevant today.

[Stephen Knizek]

Love this entire movie ^_^

[Paul Hughes]

It's not the primacy of man's laws *over* God's laws; it's about how even man's laws protect us, and if everyone willy-nilly "cuts them flat" they'll find *they're* in danger. In the "Trial" scene More (Scofield) says he's being executed for upholding God's law (on divorce) over man's law (Henry VIII's decree), and when he is executed he says, "I die his Majesty's good servant, but God's first."

The point is that The Law is not to be dismantled for expediency's sake.

[50srefugee]

As dearly as I love this speech -- and I do -- there is another side to the coin: Laws planted so thickly that every man runs afoul of them -- except those who rule, because they put themselves above the law.

See the war on drugs, and new efforts to ban guns. Most traffic laws. The EPA. The FCC. Copyright and patent law, as currently implemented.

We must have laws, anarchy is but one step around the circle to tyranny. But we must have the fewest possible laws we can manage.

[LSTB]

That dude's head is tiny.

[NoRegretsForOurYouth]

I've watched the Moore/Wolsey scene over a hundred times. Love this movie.

[Anna Loudon]

mans laws over Gods laws barbaric!

[Anna Loudon]

people need to get involved with their communities and their lives. Chattle no more!

[rasnac]

Socrates used the same argument against his disciples who try to break him out of the prison on the night before his execution.

[50srefugee]

Sorry, for some reason RETURN is posting instead of giving me a new line. Let me try again.

[50srefugee]

"primacy of man's laws over God's laws"