How Partisanship trumps principle -- The important principles for which I am willing to pay a heavy price -- How sticking to my principles got me canceled -- Being canceled by Jewish institutions -- Being canceled by longtime friends because my principles did not fit their partisan demands -- Now Trump supporters have turned on me for opposing Biden's impeachment -- How identity politics is replacing principle in our courts of law -- Unprincipled attacks on Israel -- Unprincipled and partisan approaches to voting rights -- The partisan divide over vaccine mandates -- As a matter of principle, are we a systematically racist nation? -- The unprincipled media creates and exacerbates divisions -- The misuse of principle by academics -- The implications of punishing principle and rewarding partisan hypocrisy: can we ever reverse it?
Summary:
"The Price of Principle is about efforts to cancel Alan Dershowitz and his career because he has insisted on sticking to his principles instead of choosing sides in the current culture and political war dividing our country. He explains that principled people are actively punished for not being sufficiently partisan. Principle has become the vice and partisanship the virtue in an age when partisan ends justify unprincipled means, such as denial of due process and free speech in the interest of achieving partisan or ideological goals. Throughout his narrative, Dershowitz focuses on three sets of principles that have guided his life: 1) freedom of expression and conscience; 2) due process, fundamental fairness, and the adversary system of seeking justice; and 3) basic equality and meritocracy. He documents the attacks on him and others like him for being "guilty" of refusing to compromise important principles to promote partisanship. He names names and points fingers of accusation at those who have led us down this dangerous road. In the end, The Price of Principle represents an icon in the defense of free speech and due process reckoning with the challenges of unprincipled attacks--a new brand of McCarthyism--and insisting that we ask hard questions about our own moral principles" -- Publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.