Bork hasn't addressed the externalities of censorship:
One way the Nazis cleansed the country of "un-German" thoughts was through censorship. A "brown shirt" (member of the SA) throws some more fuel--"un-German" books-- into a roaring fire on the Opernplatz in Berlin. May 10, 1933.
Photo credit: USHMM Photo Archives
The second bit of advice --'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.
Sarah Brady says the same thing about guns.
Bork fails to make an important distinction between solicited messages (solicited by buying a book or entering a movie theater), and unsolicited ones, that project from store windows, billboards or public acts. The externality argument of his is spurious. If I literally pollute the environment with a toxin, I am causing proximate harm, which under unjust pollution laws I may have a chance to externalize. If I sell pornography to a free moral agent who then commits a sex crime then the moral agent is causing the proximate harm and I didn't externalize anything. (That is leaving aside the argument that pornography serves as a useful and non-violence release for potential criminals). Only if the pornographic message is unsolicited does the moral equation change.
Oooh, I like this. Fits in with my minwage arguments. I gots to go Bork texaggie and general_re and badrotorooter and ....parsy.
Bork holds and advocates the community can justify interference with the decisions of others on the following grounds, 1)the community has accepted his view of acceptable behavior, or 2)The community meets rule #1 and votes to acknowledge it, or votes to reject it and they are over ruled by one so wise as Lord Bork. Notice #2 is legislating from the bench if it is deemed necessary to institute a particular decree.
Bork is an authoritarian tyrant and that is the single reason so much effort went into keeping him from sitting at the USSC. If Bork's long winded claims, that allowing folks to make there own decisions had any basis in reality; Bork himself would be porn star from exposure during the vast amount of time he spent considering the subject matter of what he despises.
I see where he's coming from but I still disagree. There are only two ways to decide what 'rights' are; one is to allow the community to decide based on any number of subjective criteria and the other is to try to define them objectively. Letting the community decide is fine if you and your ideology are in the majority but its dangerous. I'm sure there are tens of thousands of militant homosexuals that believe your teaching your children to interpret the Bible literally has the "negative externality" of them getting bashed in back alleys. GOD forbid this view ever come to prominence or those of you who have already conceded that rights are based on the whim of the community (and thus have ceded the moral high ground) may find yourselves painted into a proverbial corner.
You might say this talk of objectivity is puffery, any system of rights will be subjective. But I say 'rights' are meaningless without at least a pretence of objectivity. If 'rights' are whatever the community subjectively determines them to be at any given time then 'rights' are merely 'permissions' which may be given or taken away at a whim. At least libertarians have tried to pin down what rights are, they say rights are X and then they are willing to defend that position. They've created a formula, call it the Non-Initiation of Force Principle or the Non-Aggression Axiom. You can plug a situation into one side of the formula and get a remarkably consistent answer out the other. Sometimes the formula isn't enough like in the abortion controversy which involves the meta-question of whether fetuses have rights in the first place. It's not perfect but its a very good foundation.
RE: explaining the right to pornography
The question is when a consenting adult takes naked pictures of herself and another consenting adult looks at those pictures who has been aggressed upon? Who's rights violated? No one's. And the only legitimate purpose of government is defending the rights of it's citizens. Its simply not the government's function to prevent consensual behavior.
And we don't just say "Just hit the remote control and change channels on your TV set." The fact is you can call the station and complain, boycott advertisers, throw your TV away or any of a nearly infinite list of actions EXCEPT use force to stop the broadcast you find offensive(and government IS force). Its persuasion vs. coercion; one is Kosher, the other not.
The funny thing is that by resorting to coercion you are tacitly admitting the poverty of your position or at least your impotence to persuade others to the rightness of your cause. Once again, inside the framework of consent why should people be forced to behave in ways which they cannot be freely persuaded?
For thousands of years, mankind has done well setting aside certain areas for vice. In colonial Connecticut, iron workers consisted of extended families, families who had a reputation for vice. The state needed them but gave them their own town, outside of New Haven. Red light districts have always worked well. Laws were not usually passed allowing what went on within the districts, police simply ignored the laws on the books. In the case of the Combat Zone in Boston, it was the safest place to be in the city. Making people expend a little effort to indulge is not a bad thing. Besides, men like to crawl thru sewers to get sleaze.
Again, taking the few sentences which show traces of something other than content-free bloviations:
libertarians all too often confuse the idea that markets should be free with the idea that everything should be available on the market
Nonsense. Libertarians expect things to be driven out of the market if consumers find them to be worthless -- remember the "bad truck" example from that communist critique you posted? Additionally, libertarian law, like most systems of laws, the sale of those goods and services which would be illegal (e.g. contract killings, to take an obvious example).
The externalities of depictions of violence and pornography are clear.
A first-year law student, much less a judge, should know that one is required to prove, not merely assert, a claim of fact upon which an argument rests.
But, like the person who chooses not to run a smelter while others do, you, your family, and your neighbors will be affected by the people who do not change the channel, who do rent the pornographic videos, who do read alt.sex.stories.
The pollution produced by a smelter is demonstrable as a matter of objective fact. To draw an analogy to something whose externalities are merely asserted without evidence is rather pathetic.
The obstacles to censorship of pornographic and viloence[sic]-filled materials are, of course, enormous.
Well, yes -- it happens to be illegal. Fortunately, the attitude that the law is simply an "obstacle" to overcome has been removed from the White House (for the time being) and was not seated on the Supreme Court.
Libertarians have real trouble understanding this concept
It's hard to visualize what a free economy would look like self policed instead of big government) these days with our tax hungry Uncle Sam. The populace needs to grow up self-reliant and be street savy to scams.
My view is State & local governments can pass their anti-porno laws....or they can have a free-for-all.....it's up to them - but not the FEDS.
He doesn't believe that the Second Amendment protects an individual RKBA, either.