The Liberal Line

Let’s take one more class hour, however painful, over the New Republic’s current series on “The State of Our Civil Liberties” — and then let Professor Roche go his way in peace.

As we saw two weeks ago, Professor Roche did not find a terror in the land directed against “denigrators” of established institutions and ideas. This was disappointing. But he didn’t let the editors of the New Republic down completely — nor did his scholarly circumspection about the evidence continue, throughout the series, to force him into positions at variance with the Liberal line. By the end of the series, indeed, all the line had done was take one step back and two steps forward. As witness the following:

WK

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Willmoore Kendall

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Let’s take one more class hour, however painful, over the New Republic’s current series on “The State of Our Civil Liberties” — and then let Professor Roche go his way in peace.

As we saw two weeks ago, Professor Roche did not find a terror in the land directed against “denigrators” of established institutions and ideas. This was disappointing. But he didn’t let the editors of the New Republic down completely — nor did his scholarly circumspection about the evidence continue, throughout the series, to force him into positions at variance with the Liberal line. By the end of the series, indeed, all the line had done was take one step back and two steps forward. As witness the following: