Legal Commentary

Louis Brandeis comments on the right of self-defense

By David Kopel

From Leonard Baker,  Brandeis and Frankfurter: A Dual Biography (1984), p. 341. On June 18, 1930, Justice Brandeis (who was the best-known Zionist in the United States) met with the U.K.?s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Lindsay:

Brandeis told Sir Ronald ?that it was wholly contrary to any conception of civil rights with which I was familiar, through study of the Anglo-Saxon institutions and the American experience, that when a government found itself unble to afford protection, citizens should not be permitted to protect themselves.? The English did not protect the Jews, nor allow the Jews to arm themselves against the Arab threat.

Or as Brandeis also said, ?We shall have lost something vital and beyond price on the day when the state denies us the right to resort to force...? Alfred Lief, The Brandeis Guide to the Modern World (1941), p. 212.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on July 08, 2010 (boomark / email).