Mike the Mad Biologist

Guess who Mitt Romney picked as co-chair of his “Justice Advisory Committee”? Robert Bork. Yes, this Robert Bork:

Banning Porn, Art and Science : Bork also called for shrinking the size of the First Amendment until it is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub. “Constitutional protection should be accorded only to speech that is explicitly political. There is no basis for judicial intervention to protect any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or that variety of expression we call obscene or pornographic.”

Here are some other blasts from the past:

Opposition To Civil Rights: One year before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned whites-only lunch counters and other forms of discrimination, Bork criticized the Act as a moral abomination. “The principle of such legislation is that if I find your behavior ugly by my standards, moral or aesthetic, and if you prove stubborn about adopting my view of the situation, I am justified in having the state coerce you into more righteous paths. That is itself a principle of unsurpassed ugliness.”

And:

No Right To Contraception: In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court held that married couples have a constitutional right to use contraception — a decision that was later extended to all couples. Bork called this decision “utterly specious” and a “time bomb.”

Oh, yes:

No Constitutional Protection for Women: Bork also claimed that the Constitution does not shield women from gender discrimination. In Bork’s words, “I do think the equal protection clause probably should be kept to things like race and ethnicity.”

When I lived in Virginia, I used to remark that the choice was between the de facto Republican (i.e., the Democrat) and the segregationist. Now, I get to choose between a Rockefeller Republican and a batshitloonitarian–or, worse, a craven opportunist pretending to be a a batshitloonitarian.

Ugh.

Comments

#1 Rob Jase
August 4, 2011

The more I see of Mittens the more I think he isn’t pretending.
#2 Orac
August 4, 2011

On the other hand, if the economy is still this bad in November 2012, chances are better than 50-50 that Obama will lose the election. For all his faults, Mitt Romney is the least insane Republican candidate thus far. Alone among Republican candidates for the nomination, he doesn’t provoke the visceral fear that, for instance, the prospect of a President Palin or a President Bachmann does.
#3 Greatbear
August 4, 2011

I’d hate to see a democrat like Obama losing the election without actually trying democratic ideas first.
#4 Lynxreign
August 4, 2011

The solution is for Obama to admit he’s a Republican and run for the Republican nomination next year, leaving the Democrats to nominate an actual Democrat.
#5 Juice
August 4, 2011

Well, at least he contradicted himself between the first two quotes.
#6 feralboy12
August 4, 2011

Bork was also the guy that Nixon got to fire special prosecuter Archibald Cox after the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General both refused.
He did Nixon’s dirty work nearly 40 years ago; surely he’d be perfect for any of today’s republican ratbags.
#7 Childermass
August 4, 2011

I suspect he is pandering to the teabaggers. But it will still make a great political ad. Who he he advices him on judicial issues is as fair game as it gets.

Let us also not forget that he was also for healthcare before he was against it.
#8 Nomen Nescio
August 4, 2011

The solution is for Obama to admit he’s a Republican and run for the Republican nomination next year, leaving the Democrats to nominate an actual Democrat.

i approve of your suggestion and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
#9 natural cynic
August 4, 2011

“…I am justified in having the state coerce you into more righteous paths. That is itself a principle of unsurpassed ugliness.”

Then we can expect a swift demobilization from the Drug War?
#10 Primadogga
August 4, 2011

Interesting. Bork is the only person in recent history to have failed in a bid for SCOTUS. Let’s watch Romney’s campaign implode as he alienates everyone except the far right…
#11 DaveD
August 4, 2011

Orac@2

On what basis would you argue that Romney is less crazy than Huntsman?
#12 fancyflyer
August 5, 2011

Thanks for that blast. I had forgotten what a walking brain fart Bork was.
#13 Moopheus
August 5, 2011

Yes, this seems to be the emerging choice: a) Obama, who has in many key areas continued the very same policies we complained about during the Bush years, and b) and a Republican candidate who would also continue those policies, and in addition be even more regressive on many social issues. With an outside chance of c) a protest candidate with no real chance of election.

I for one would like to see a viable third party, but that isn’t going to happen overnight. To make a third party means organizing, developing a coherent platform (in contrast to the Tea Party), building an infrastructure of operatives and donors, attracting candidates for elections in sympathetic districts. A third-party president with no support in Congress would get nothing done; you have to build from the bottom.
#14 Wow
August 5, 2011

Tell party (a) that you have noted they are not worth voting for.

Party (a) isn’t going to all the trouble of campaigning in the hopes of LOSING to the greater evil party (b).

If party (a) doesn’t change, then you’re never going to get anything other than right wing and that rightwing is going to move further and further to the right until you realise that you’ve been played for a sucker.

Consider the worst case: party (b) wins.

However, that won’t last long. They’re incompetent and even malign. This is not a stable government.

Consider the less worse: no clear winner. With both sides lacking power to push through laws, you have no different an outcome than if you voted for (a) except now you have shown that you are to be counted.

Consider the best: party (a) changes.

Voting for the lesser of two evils merely delays the day when you get the greater evil.

Do your descendants a favour: fight the growth.
#15 TTT
August 5, 2011

Do your descendents a FAVOUR

Oh, so you’re not an American? Great, you can stop presuming to know how we ought to make our voting decisions.

We American liberals actually have to live here. We and our kids and our families depend on this infrastructure, on these social services, on these government programs. So we can’t always indulge in Quixotic protest votes if they actually run the risk of making our lives clearly and materially worse.

Sometimes you have to sacrifice some principles in order to keep some of them–and you learn to settle for that when the alternative is to lose EVERYTHING. We American liberals learned that in 2000, or at least, those who were paying attention did.
#16 TTT
August 5, 2011

Worst-case scenario: party (b) wins. However, that won’t last long. They’re incompetent and even malign. This is not a stable government.

Meant to include this in my “you’re not American” post. Because that is BEYOND a worst-case scenario–it’s a catastrophe. It’s supposed to be a sign of hope that we’d have a non-stable, incompetent, malign government? How are we supposed to live during the time that it does last? If we lose our jobs, will pure perfect ideals pay our utility bills?

Thanks to idiot protest votes in 2000, we had “Party B” control our entire government for 6 years. They bankrupted and destroyed our economy, at this point looking like it’s for keeps. They missed all the warning signs for 9/11, and then responded to it with a frivolous war in the wrong country that destroyed our military capacity and moral standing as well.

But that “didn’t last long”–it was only 6 years! When Party B lost power, all the dead were revived and the jobs came back. Right?

It’s easy to be glib when it isn’t your job, your family, and your friends on the line.
#17 Wow
August 5, 2011

“Because that is BEYOND a worst-case scenario–it’s a catastrophe.”

TTT doesn’t understand worst-case scenario.

You see a worst case scenario is bad. It can even be a catastrophe.

“Thanks to idiot protest votes in 2000, we had “Party B” control our entire government for 6 years.”

So you survived *6 years*.

“They bankrupted and destroyed our economy, at this point looking like it’s for keeps.”

And Party (a) is continuing to do the same things party (b) did in 2000.

So you decide you have to vote party (a)???
#18 Wow
August 5, 2011

“Sometimes you have to sacrifice some principles in order to keep some of them”

And the road to hell is paved in them.
#19 TTT
August 5, 2011

So you survived *6 years*.

That’s right, I forgot from the Skepchick-elevator thread: you have Asperger’s. So, just take my word for it that the people I mentioned above who died in 9/11 and Iraq didn’t survive.
#20 Wow
August 6, 2011

Ah, so since you can’t actually continue your diatribe about how bad you’ve had it since you HAVE survived 6 years of it and want to vote in a party that is doing the same thing again, you decide that you don’t HAVE to answer because, well, um, you’ll get back to us on that, won’t you.

“the people I mentioned above who died in 9/11 and Iraq didn’t survive”

Well, no, BY DEFINITION they didn’t survive.

However, you’re wanting to vote in a party that is still doing it.

This indicates that you don’t mind the dead in Iraq.