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To: crusty old prospector

“Pornography is a blight on this nation and God’s judgement is not far behind.”

Amen to that!

Judge Robert Bork wrote what follows in 1995:

The leader of the revolution in pornographic video, referred to admiringly by a competitor as the Ted Turner of the business, offers the usual defenses of decadence: “Adults have a right to see [pornography] if they want to. If it offends you, don’t buy it.” Modern liberalism employs the rhetoric of “rights” incessantly to delegitimize restraints on individuals by communities. It is a pernicious rhetoric because it asserts a right without giving reasons. If there is to be anything that can be called a community, the case for previously unrecognized individual freedoms must be thought through, and “rights” cannot win every time.

The second notion-”If it offends you, don’t buy it”-is both lulling and destructive. Whether you buy it or not, you will be greatly affected by those who do. The aesthetic and moral environment in which you and your family live will be coarsened and brutalized. There are economists who confuse the idea that markets should be free with the idea that everything should be on the market. The first idea rests on the efficiency of the free market in satisfying wants; the second raises the question of which wants it is moral to satisfy. The latter question brings up the topic of externalities: you are free not to make steel, but you will be affected by the air pollution of those who do make it. To complaints about pornography and violence on television, libertarians reply, “All you have to do is hit the remote control and change channels.” But, like the person who chooses not to make steel, you and your family will be affected by the people who do not change the channel. As Michael Medved puts it, “To say that if you don’t like the popular culture then turn it off, is like saying, if you don’t like the smog, stop breathing. . . . There are Amish kids in Pennsylvania who know about Madonna.” And their parents can do nothing about that.

Robert Bork 1995


60 posted on 03/18/2012 8:29:53 PM PDT by Sola Veritas (Trying to speak truth - not always with the best grammar or spelling)
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To: Sola Veritas

He should still be sitting on the Supreme Court today.


83 posted on 03/18/2012 8:46:04 PM PDT by crusty old prospector
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To: Sola Veritas

Exactly. He hit the nail on the head perfectly.


128 posted on 03/18/2012 10:10:45 PM PDT by Pinkbell (Rick Santorum For President)
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