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Drink

A thirst for justice: the wit and wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes

Let’s drink to the memory of a judge who elevated common sense to a Platonic idea

12 March 2016

9:00 AM

12 March 2016

9:00 AM

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a great common lawyer, was an adornment to the American Supreme Court. His wisdom is still cited in common-law jurisdictions throughout the world. Any English lawyer who would prefer to exchange Holmes’s incisive rulings — which usually amount to common sense elevated to a Platonic idea — for some European mush based on supposed human rights, reveals himself as a legal numbskull who so hates his own country that he cannot bear its successes, not least of which is the principle of freedom under the rule of law.

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