4.6 • 632 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
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0:00.0 | Before we get started, some good news. |
0:02.2 | Conversations is moving and getting its own dedicated channel. |
0:05.2 | As of July, you can find our show exclusively on the Conversations page on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, linked below. |
0:13.6 | Or continue listening directly on our website at first things.com. |
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0:35.8 | Alan Dershowitz joins us today, Harvard Law Professor, of course, renowned litigant, author of many, many books, |
0:43.2 | First Things Amendment expert, and we had him on a year and a half ago or so for his previous book. |
0:49.5 | We has a new book called The Preventive State, The Challenge of Preventing Serious Harm while Preserving |
0:56.7 | Essential Liberties. That's our topic today. Welcome, Professor Derswitz. Thanks for having me on. |
1:01.8 | I appreciate it. First, we have an introduction by Justice Stephen Breyer. You two go back a |
1:08.0 | pretty long way, don't you? We clerk for the same justice. I helped pick him to succeed |
1:14.1 | me, and then we served on the faculty together for many, many years, so we're close. We don't |
1:20.3 | agree about everything, but we admire each other, and so I was very happy to have him write the preface to the book. And, |
1:29.4 | you know, he says some very, very nice thing. So I appreciate you. Well, from what you just said, |
1:35.2 | I guess he owes it all to you. No, he doesn't. He owes it all to his own brilliance and his |
1:40.5 | ability as a great judge. But I'm glad to have been his friend. |
1:45.5 | So your framework for the book really rests on two historical conditions that we're in now. |
1:53.5 | One, massive threats have never been more potent. |
1:58.2 | I mean, threats to, you know, national security, terrorism, to, |
2:01.8 | you know, life and living for many, many people. That's one. That's the negative. We also, |
2:09.0 | though, have the positive, which is our capacity to predict them has never been better. Tell us |
2:16.2 | more about this condition. We've always had dangers, obviously, |
... |
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