“No activity that society thinks immoral is victimless. Knowledge that an activity is taking place is a harm to those who find it profoundly immoral.” – Robert Bork
He wants to put people in jail for drug “crimes” because they “trigger him” in current parlance. And people wonder where lefties get their ideas.
Triggered by this comment by Glenn and this blog post by Eric: The inexcusable violence of trigger warnings.
Comments
8 responses to “Robert Bork Is A Victim”
“No activity that society thinks immoral is victimless. Knowledge that an activity is taking place is a harm to those who find it profoundly immoral.” – Robert Bork
First off, society doesn’t think, only people as individuals can think. And is there a difference between thinking something immoral versus “profoundly” immoral? And just what is this harm he speaks of? His statementis really just a meaningless platitude in service of his personal social conservatism.
Assuming that Bork is saying that the majority acts as the collective conscience of society, he is advocating for a society whereby any minority is subject to the whims of the majority. So much for minority rights. So if a majority thinks blasphemy wrong (as far as I can tell, blasphemy is a victimless crime), then per Bork, society is justified in punishing blasphemers. Because not punishing blasphemers would bother (harm) the majority that thinks blasphemy is “profoundly” immoral. Bork has demonstrated that he would make an excellent middle-eastern Muslim.
Bork has proven himself to be just another run-of-the-mill social conservative who thinks that any activity outside of his RCC moral standards is beyond the pale. And that is the real complaint of the social conservatives, that they nor their religious dogmas don’t have the final say on morality like they once had.
“Knowledge that an activity is taking place is a harm to those who find it profoundly immoral.”
In other words, the fact that some eat meat or wear leather harms animal rights activists.
And the fact that some people are atheists harms religious people. Not only that, the fact that some people are religious harms atheists! I had no idea Bork considered the First Amendment to be so harmful.
Thanks for the link!
Eric,
It is worse than that. He said it in the context of the Drug War.
People like Bork employ the term “defining deviancy down” when actions they think immoral aren’t viewed the same way by others. It would seem to me that Bork is defining harm down to the point that if the acts of another bother his enlightened conscience, he thinks those like him are harmed. Sheesh.
When one supports the use of violence or the threat of violence to enforce the prohibition of non-violent, peaceful behaviors, then that person is the one with the broken moral compass, not the object of his/her wrath. Bork’s moral compass is likely busted beyond repair.
Bork’s moral compass is likely busted beyond repair.
Yes it is. And there are a LOT more like him.
I agree with bork not about victimless crime which society is changing its mind about every five minutes ;but I and others in society are victims when republican evil goes unpunished. when a cop shoots a black child and goes unpunished. The invasion of iraq and torture perpetrators are not in jail cells and so very much more!
Crap,
By that criteria I’m a victim of your stupidity. Except that I refuse to succumb.
Simon wrote:
“It is worse than that. He said it in the context of the Drug War.”
And apparently repeated it in the context of an anti-sodomy ruling of the SCOTUS on page 123 in his book “The Tempting of America.”
Then there is his argument against the ruling in Griswold v Connecticut where he argued that the Justices should have given priority to ‘moral gratification’ over ‘sexual gratification.’
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2003/11/27/robert-bork-and-the-9th-amendm/
Or his take on ‘Neutral Principles and First Amendment Problems’ where he tries convert the Griswold decision into some type of pandering to Utilitarianism with the metric being the greatest gratification for the greatest number, which, of course, he opposes.
For all of the conservatives’ talk about ‘First Principles’ they seem to be obliviously hostile to our first founding document. Just how does the phrase,
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
support the notion that state governments are somehow exempt from this principle?