Via Brad DeLong, Reason's Jacob Sullum shares Robert Bork's horrifying definition of censorship as freedom (reminder: this man was almost a member of the Supreme Court):
The December 19 issue of National Review, marking the magazine's 50th anniversary, includes a feature in which 10 people offer suggestions on "How to Increase Liberty in America," to which I contributed a few paragraphs about ending the war on drugs. Sandwiched between Clint Bolick on school choice and Ward Connerly on colorblindness is Robert Bork on censorship. Just to be clear: He is for it.
"Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality," writes the former appeals court judge, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Censorship as an enhancement of liberty may seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but dogmatic First Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free." Bork goes on to complain that "relations between the sexes are debased by pornography"; that "large parts of television are unwatchable"; that "motion pictures rely upon sex, gore, and pyrotechnics for the edification of the target audience of 14-year-olds"; and that "popular music hardly deserves the name of music."
Treating speech as a kind of assault and redefining freedom so that it requires its opposite are familiar tricks of the left that National Review usually is quick to mock. How are they any more respectable when deployed by a man who has elevated fuddy-duddyness to a political principle?
So, by denying us the chance to listen to Howard Stern... liberty in the US becomes stronger?
I think I have officially gone into the parallel universe where Spock has a goatee.
Posted by: Tony Smith | December 09, 2005 at 03:59 AM
Bork lost a lot of his followers when he abandoned 30 years of clear-thinking antitrust analysis to sign on as a consultant to the plaintiffs in the Microsoft antitrust case.
Posted by: DBL | December 09, 2005 at 03:54 PM
Hey, any person who reads and believes the scriptures knows that breaking God's commandments does not make us free but rather enslaves us to the Adversary. The Lord's people did not prosper and were not protected from their enemies when they were wicked. However, that does not mean that government should enforce a particular religion's tenets on the masses. However, that also does not mean we can't protect our children who represent our future. If we can't protect our children from bad influences, then we can't expect to have a strong and moral future.
Just because something is mentioned in a church (e.g. sodomy bad) does not mean it is off limits to legislation. I'm still trying to figure out the line of demarcation (if there is any) but I don't think it is as strict as many social liberals argue.
Maybe you have some thoughts to offer on the subject. Or maybe the mention of scriptures and "the Lord's people" scare you. Don't be scared. Speak freely and openly on what you think about "legislating morals" which is what we do all the time in our legislatures.
Posted by: Derek Knolls | December 10, 2005 at 07:42 PM