"Skipping Towards Gomorrah"

[Democrats_win]

A 2003 book by Dan Savage. Since MSNBC occasionally mentions Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah, it's important for us to remember this fun answer to it.

My interpretation of Dan Savage's book is that some of the "immortality" that virtuecrats like Bork and O'Reilly talk about could actually help regular people deal with the savage economic system that has been imposed on us by allies of Bork such as Ronald Reagan.

For instance, this economic system no longer gives as much paid vacation time for employees. Dan Savage suggests that smoking pot is the equivalent of taking a vacation. Well, I don't know if that's true but you get the point.

The book's plot is for Dan Savage to go undercover, travel around the country and observe people committing the seven deadly sins. The main message is that the virtuecrats should mind their business and let people pursue life, liberty and happiness.

Check out the Wikipedia page about the book and Amazon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skipping_Towards_Gomorrah

http://www.amazon.com/Skipping-Towards-Gomorrah-Dan-Savage/dp/0452284163/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387478635&sr=1-1&keywords=skipping+towards+gomorrah

BTW
Robert Bork, instead of standing up for what's right, is famous for following the orders of Nixon to fire the Watergate special prosecutor after TWO of the MEN above him refused and each had to resign. This event is known as the Saturday Night Massacre. Just think, Nixon wanted to fire the man who was investigating him! The special prosecutor subpoenaed the famous Nixon tapes so Nixon wanted him fired. Eventually the tapes were released and Nixon resigned.

Astonishingly, Reagan nominated Bork for the Supreme Court. For several reasons, including the Saturday Night Massacre, Bork was not approved. Check out wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork

[pscot]

1. I can't get my head around the idea

of Dan Savage under cover. Sort of like a leopard at a cat show, I imagine.

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

2. I read Bork's Tempting of America

He spends much of the book arguing that the proper way to interpret the Constitution is "original intent" -- the meaning that the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote it. The way Bork does it is to bring up all the other schools of interpretation, and show flaws in each one of them. I will say that the flaws he points out are quite genuine. So, at the end, the only one left standing is original intent.

However, there are two problems with Bork's approach. The first is that there may well be another school of interpretation that he did not cover. I'm not saying that there is, nor do know what it might be, I'm just pointing out the possibility that Bork may not have covered all the possibilities.

The second problem is that one can subject original intent to exactly the same examination that Bork gave the other schools of interpretation. I did that -- Bork showed me how -- and guess what? Original intent has exactly the same sort of flaws that all the others exhibited. For example, it is not always clear just what the original intent of the framers was. They were a diverse group who frequently argued among themselves -- indeed, one can show cases in which an individual framer changed his mind. So how do you determine the intent of the framers. And, since they disagreed with each other, should one seek out the words of George Clinton or Alexander Hamilton? And what about Thomas Jefferson, who was in France during the entire Constitutional Convention?

Speaking of Jefferson, here is a germane quotation:

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.