From the December 19, 2005 issue of National Review, in an article on "How to increase liberty in America", Bork goes Orwell on us. Jacob Sollum has the money quote:
"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."
Censorship increases liberty. War is peace. Black is white. And Bork was unfairly kept off the Supreme Court. Riiiiiight.
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Hm. A bit of editing and we get this:
"Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality. Gun control as an enhancement of liberty may seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but dogmatic Second Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free."
Dswift:
Widespread gun ownership and use would be just... like... widespread... speech? Hmmm.
This parallel structure thing is tricky! Can you explain it again?
(And I'm actually enthusiastically progun, BTW, just don't think verbal stunts like this really mean anything.)
people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free.
I missed the bit where Bork made the link between greater freedom of speech and "brutalization." If he can't tell there's a difference, then he certainly can't be trusted to protect innocent people from real brutality, by any means.
Great link, Ed. I can see lots of commenters are giving Bork the logical bitch-slap he deserves.
Interesting use of language here. First we have "dogmatic Darwinists", now Bork says we have "dogmatic first ammendment absolutists."
Maybe we'll start hearing the right wingers using the word "First Ammendmentists" as a pejorative term. After all, isn't it those damnn First Ammendmendists (= ACLU) who censor displays of Baby Jesus at Christmas? Pretty soon they'll have the faithful flock convinced that the first ammendment is anti-Christian, if they haven't already.
I guess all you have to do is tack on the suffix "ist" and, voila! You have a villain.
Apparently Bork doesn't think that arresting people and censhorship qualifies as "brutalization."
dswift,
whatever you say, the fact is that states with gun control (like most European states) have much less brutal crime.
There was not a single event of a school shooting in Poland. Never.
Roman wrote:
By itself, this isn't a terribly compelling argument because it points to correlation, not causation. One could as easily and accurately argue, for instance, that nations with lower rates of religious belief - like most European states - have much less brutal crime. Does this mean that religious belief causes brutal crime? Possibly, I suppose, but the mere correlation doesn't establish such a claim. The causes of crime appear to be far more complex than either of those claims.
Again, not terribly meaningful in and of itself. Poland has a population of about 39 million, or just slightly higher than our most populated single state. We have lots of states that have never had a school shooting. And the fact is that Europe has begun to catch up to the US in mass public shootings over the last few years, even in states with the strongest gun control laws. France, Germany and Switzerland have all had major public shootings in the last few years, including 16 people murdered in a school shooting in 2002 in Germany.
One could very easily turn such correlations around as well and note that since Britain banned handguns in 1996, the rate of gun crimes has gone up 40%, particularly aggravated assault and armed robbery. Australia passed very strong gun control laws also in 1996 and since then have seen enormous increases in violent crime, including an amazing 51% increase in armed robberies and a 43% increase in kidnappings. By themselves, such correlations just don't prove all that much unless one is able to isolate actual causation.
"...people forced to live in an increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly free."
The fact that my neighbor can access pornography on the internet is, like, a total affront to my pursuit of happiness. Especially if he won't share.
Ed,
I have very little doubt that easy access to guns means that criminals will be more likely to shoot me. It's pretty simple. If it is easy to have a gun, most criminals will assume I am likely to have one, especially if I look like a "rich" target. Hence, they -- being also equipped with guns -- will be likely to shoot first. If, on the contrary, it is hard to have a gun, then the criminals are less likely to have a gun too (few robberies of individual people in Poland are done with a gun), let alone use it against me.
TikiHead et al,
Relax, I'm a gunnist too.
Ponder amendment absolutism. Bork proposes distinct limits to protected speech lest words harm society. Isn't proposing limits on gun distribution consistent with that line of thinking?
I bet most Second Amendment absolutists support First Amendment restrictions, and vice versa. Irrational but true, just like anti-abortionists tend to support war and capital punishment.
IOW, those who would sully the First Amendment should be reminded that it makes as much sense to sully the Second Amendment.
The second amendment should be narrowly construed, in accordance with its introductory phrase that it is intended to be part of an attempt to create a well regulated militia. Better yet, repeal it. The notion that the framers of the document intended to create a legal right to conduct armed insurrection or resistance is not only ludicrous on its face but inconsistent with other provisions of the Const. To the extent that this provision made sense for creation of citizen militias (which could be nationalized to suppress regulations) it is an historical novelty that we no longer need.
Totally OT, but I agree with icoloclast: of all the rights set forth inthe Constitution, only the right to "keep and bear arms" is explicitly set forth as a means to an end; so that right is not in any way the equal of the other rights, which are clearly set forth and understood as ends in themselves.