Today I read a commentary from a lawyer named Elden Rosenthal in a publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is one of the most poignant expressions of the importance of the rule of law that I have read. According to the publication, Rosenthal is an attorney in Portland, Oregon and a member of the SPLC Board of Directors. In 1990, he served as co-counsel in the SPLC's lawsuit against a white supremacist and neo-Nazi leader after the beating death of an Ethiopian student. He writes of how the defendant's closing argument to the jury (which the defendant delivered pro se) reminded him of the rhetoric that preceded the Holocaust. Now, almost three decades later, he hears similar rhetoric coming from the current administration in Washington. In both cases, the neo-Nazi then and the administration now, attacked lawyers, blaming them for the worsening economic conditions of white Americans. He writes: Make no mistake about what is happening right now in America. White
Meditations on Law and Life