Slouching Towards Gomorrah : Modern Liberalism and American Decline

Rating:
Summary: Intellectual Grist for your mental mill
Review: I won't belabor this. If you are liberal you probably dislike this man full stop and nothing I say will change that. If you are conservative then you may already have a poster of him in your bedroom, and I am not trying to preach to the choir. In any case, what I do want to say is that he is extremely intelligent and wrote this book with the same kind of of "20,000 feet view" that Robert Caro has in his books. You may think that for someone as conservative as him it is not possible to stretch a "I hate liberals" mindframe into a book this long, or of any length, but not a paragraph goes by that does not add constructively to his viewpoint.

Let me give you a few examples. His strongest argument is how liberals have perverted America's goal of equality of *opportunities* to equality of *outcomes*. This is a huge change. No longer is it acceptable for everyone to have the same *chances* to succeed, everyone must have the same actual success rate. If you've read "Atlas Shrugged", you know where this ends up. Since individual people have individual innate talents and abilities the only way to guarantee the same outcome is to force the "better" people of society to be brought down to the lowest common denominator. It is just not possible to raise everybody UP but it is possible to bring everyone DOWN.

Another point is that liberals mention the Declaration of Independence and how it mentions the "Pursuit of Happiness" as one of its core goals. Liberals use this to justify their mindset that government should have no ability whatsoever to limit our independence. But the Constitution then explicitly spell out just how the government is going to limit our freedoms. Liberals tend to overlook this. Bork also mentions during this part how the founding fathers clearly viewed their statements about "pursuit of happiness" to be relevant to societies built upon moral foundations. As it is today, we have decoupled from morals when it comes to our pursuits and so we no longer have any moorings that our unbridled pursuit of happiness rests on.

A final thing that I'll mention (but far from the final thing he does) is how the modern liberal's pursuit of infinite freedom actually brings about the reverse, limitations and restrictions. Take the crusade of not offending or prejudicing any one group. This openess to letting others succeed has turned into Political Correctness whereby people's ability to have independent, critical, thinking has been severely restricted. God forbid you offend anybody and you will be drummed out of your job/career posthaste! This is not more freedom, this is less.

If you enjoy intelligent books, books that make you think, then it is worth reading this to see how your views line up against his. Personally I agree with some of the things he writes and disagree with others. If you disagree with him, well then, what kind of firepower do you bring to the discussion? He brings a lot. Why don't you see what you've got?

Rating:
Summary: In a world where "Partisan" is an evil word,can we read this
Review: In a world where "partisan" is a dirty word, can we read anything with an actual point? Many may say, "no." They are explained in this book.

Here Robert Bork, denied Supreme Court Justice, explains the birth of liberalism and for that it is well worth it. He, through both internal reasoning and empirical proof, shows how modern liberalism was born. It may sound like a simple thing and, at times, even Bork himself oversimplifies the matter, but it is nonetheless well explained. His main point is that there simply were too many people born in the "baby boom" for the socializing agents of society to socialize. And, for that argument, he may very well be correct.

The problem with his argument is that he does not include within his reason the family as a socializing agent. Too bad. It is really the only glaring flaw in his viewpoint. His view may still stand, but by overlooking such an important thing he loses some credibility.

But, the book continues and really earns its pay when it shows the effects of modern liberalism. Here there is much to be learned from this thought provoking book.

I wonder what Prof. Putnam (Bowling Alone) would say about this book?

Rating:
Summary: Overblown
Review: Though I consider myself a conservative and someone sympathetic to Bork's treatment during his confirmation battle, this book becomes more ridiculous every time I pick it up. What is tiring is Bork unrelenting negative tone throughout the book and the way he attempts to depict the most extremist of liberal positions as the norm. There are times when you have to wonder if Bork is really serious about the arguments he's making or if he's just trying to put one over on the reader. One saving grace is that the author does have a pretty wry sense of humor (which is more than one can say for his critics). Moreover, some of the books chapters, such as those on religion, make logical, credible arguments. Unfortunately, the chapter on the Supreme Court, which Bork is probably most qualified to discuss, is taken almost verbatim from his previous book, "The Tempting of America." Granted, this is not meant to be a legal treatise, but it would have been nice to see some fresh analysis of these issues, since criticism of the current Surpeme Court is hardly without any foundation. Sadly, Bork took the easy way out. Finally, while I did not care too much for this book, some of the more hysterical reviews here have taken a hit-and-run approach to Bork's views on certain issues, epecially as to censorship (actually, he really only talks of censorship in the context of the most brutal images on the Web). No doubt these are controversial and questionable proposals, but he lays out arguments that are more nuanced than it may seem from reading the reviews. Of course, since much of this book is dedicated to attacking strawmen, that may be fair medicine for Bork.