In Praise of Robert Bork on Law and Culture

First Principles ^ | 04/13/09

[Jacquerie]

Let the Bork bash begin. Some clown here will find a reason to abuse this fine jurist.

[Ozone34]

Truth be told, in the period from roughly the middle 1960s to the publication of Slouching Toward Gomorrah in the mid-1990s there had been very little serious scholarly attention given to public morality and its decline.

Nobody remembers Russell Kirk?

"The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays"

[Wonder Warthog]

< i>"Let the Bork bash begin. Some clown here will find a reason to abuse this fine jurist."

I can't call anyone who bought into the "militia only" argument on the Second Amendment a "fine jurist". On that subject, Bork rightfully deserves all the abuse that can be heaped on him.

[metesky]

Let me be the first:

Bork once stated that it was too late to turn back the clock on all the blatantly unconstitutional crap being passed off as law.

I strongly disagree.

[Jacquerie]

I strongly disagree.

Oooh, grab your panties.

[2harddrive]

Why didn’t Bush II re-nominate Bork to the Supremes?

[fleagle]

Law goes wrong when it displaces those institutions of civil society, when it undermines or pushes aside the church, the family, other character-shaping institutions, and substitutes itself for them, forcing them in a sense to abdicate their own responsibilities.

Amen brother. This is why we needed Bork on The Court.

[Jacquerie]

What is your source?

[Wonder Warthog]

"What is your source?"

Bork's own writings. I forget exactly where I read them--probably in a NRA magazine or gun rights forum. But make no mistake about it, Bork did NOT believe that the Second Amendment protected an individual right.

[Wonder Warthog]

From Wikipedia:

“Bork has denounced what he calls the “NRA view” of the Second Amendment, something he describes as the “belief that the constitution guarantees a right to Teflon-coated bullets.” Instead, he has argued that the Second Amendment merely guarantees a right to participate in a government militia.[22]”

[Jacquerie]

Okay.

Good thing the rats kept him off the Supreme Court, right?

[tanknetter]

Why didn’t Bush II re-nominate Bork to the Supremes?

Probably never crossed his mind. But even if it did, how old is Bork now? How long would he be expected to serve? What would have been the likelihood of him leaving the Court under a Dem president, allowing his seat to be flipped over to the Libs?

GWB did good in getting Roberts and Alito onto the Court. They're Conservative, but they are also YOUNG and can be expected to sit on the court for 25-35 years.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Good thing the rats kept him off the Supreme Court, right?"

In my opinion, yes. The RKBA is "the" definitive litmus test for any jurist or legislator. If they oppose an individual right of the citizenry to be armed, then they do NOT understand the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or, they "do" understand them and will work to overthrow them.

[Jacquerie]

Right. A 99% constitutionalist is your enemy. Keep that attitude and keep reelecting the likes of Obama.

[Wonder Warthog]

I don’t see Bork’s record as anything like “99% constitutionalist”. But you truck right on with your love affair of the senile old bastard.

[Jacquerie]

Didn’t watch his senate confirmation hearings did you? You obviously haven’t read his books on the constitution either.

Keep on trucking in your ignorance.

[smokingfrog]

[Galleria]

Your case against John Stuart Mill’s harm principle smacks of a classic strawman. John Stuart Mill wasn’t interested in making some moral or normative case in favor of it. Mill was a utilitarian, albiet of a different stripe than Jeremy Bentham. Mill’s harm principle simply creates the only definition of freedom that doesn’t involve any internal contradictions - as repulsive as some of its outcomes might be to social conservatives and indeed some liberal postmodernists as well.

The question of public morals, censorship, and pornography vindicates Mill’s utilitarian position. The moral case for banning Hustler magazine works just as well against a garden Harlequin romance novel, Cosmopolitan magazine, the SI Swimsuit edition, Seinfeld, Baywatch, WWE wrestling, rock videos, NFL cheerleading, etc. The reason for this is the so-called Judeo-Christian moral structure issues no normative standards for making distinctions between Hustler and any of the aforementioned publications or productions. The Bible itself doesn’t even mention pornography by name. Therefore any take on that topic defaults to a mere human construct that can’t claim any greater moral compass than any other.

[Galleria]

Ignorance is a charge admirers of Robert Bork should not make lightly. If Robert Bork is a Constitutionalist, it must be another constitution than the one I'm familiar with. He claims the First Amendment only applies to political speech, which rewrites the free speech clause. He denies the right to bear arms to the very “people” listed in the Second Amendment, and he even throws the Ninth Amendment out of the Constitution itself. He resisted the notion of a general principle of racial equality in the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause right up until his confirmation hearing - but that's no surprise since he was a race segregationist in the early 1960s. Moreover, original understanding is only his latest judicial philosophy. He was a (supposed) libertarian, a process theorist, a judicial restraint advocate, a neutral principal champion, a “law and economics” man and a devotee of original intent (as opposed to original understanding which differs somewhat). In short, the man changed his views more times on the Constitution than some people change their socks in a month. He's either a total flake or an intellectual fraud.