Who is Mary Ann Glendon? She’s the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. I love that title, as Learned Hand sounds like someone I’d like to get to know better. Because with a name like that, he’s got to be good. After all, Judge Learned Hand wrote wise opinions such as this,

What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws, and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. P. 190, The Spirit of Liberty (1944).

See what I mean? But back to Professor Glendon. [Read more...]