Customer Reviews

Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

"I use to call him 'Dork'," said a Liberal friend of mine recently. I patiently replied, "Ha, ha. I used to call him 'Railroaded'." He knew exactly what I was talking about--the 1987 confirmation hearing of Robert Bork before the Senate Judiary Committee. This confirmation hearing was very instructive to many of us--if you actually think that the Constitution of the United States has anything to do with Constitutional Law, don't bother looking for a job on the U.S. Supreme Court. Here in Slouching Towards Gomorrah Bork, in taking some well-earned and enlightening revenge, continues the incisive and dead-on analysis of his subject which he exhibited in The Tempting of America, his book about Constitutional Law, judicial activism, and the Court's hijacking of our country. Bork's thesis here is this: Modern America has been infected and weakened by two main currents embraced and perpetuated by Liberalism, (1) radical egalitarianism and (2) radical individualism. Interestingly, he doesn't just place the locus embryonicus for these intellectual and cultural viruses in the 1960s, although he certainly traces their major gestation period to that decade. Rather, Bork points out the historical and fairly old occurences of these maladies. He gets to the very seeds of these currents which germinate and blossom on the scene in the early 1960s. Well, the radical egalitarianism that Bork identifies perfectly is not an egalitarianism which stems from Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence, and Lincoln, but the egalitarianism that says that everybody, darn it, is going to be equal, or else. People should not be allowed to make too much money, or own too many things, or be too successful in this world. Hence this brand of equality leads, necessarily and logically, to government coercion, meddling, and refereeing. Further, then, argues Bork, this leads to an expanding Federal Government which, with the ample help of the activists courts, has taken over almost every meaningful aspect of our lives in the effort to level everyone in the name of equality and justice. Radical individualism, again to be distinguished from generic individualism, also to be found in our formational and fundamental documents, is the kind that recognizes no standards in any area of personal behavior, except, of course, where the government deems that equality is more important. It is this radical individualism that will accept no standards, except those thought up, or felt, by the individual, that wants government out of peoples' business. It is the acceptance, actually, of nihilism--that cuddly ol' deathwish germinated in Nietzsche's brain about a century ago. This nihilism has led to the problems of divorce, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, pornography, and just about any other malady that continues to tear the fabric of this country apart. Bork certainly presents us with an analysis of our cutlural and intellectual diseases that must make his detractors, and his admirers, think long and hard about our practices, ideas, and assumptions. The long road to reform has to start with the proper intellectual framework. Once this is accented to it will be a matter of will and determination to ensure that we "leap away from Gomorrah."

Judge Bork does a superb job of describing the various elements of destruction that have arisen from the application of modern liberalism to American society. He also offers best and worst case scenarios for the future of the Republic if the current trends continue.

Bork makes it clear that he speaks not of the traditional liberalism exercised by the Founding Fathers but rather an ideological departure from that tradition that has hijacked and bastardized the name.

The modern form of liberalism consists of radical egalitarianism, which inherently requires a coercive State. It also consists of a radical individualism that corrodes institutions of restraint (i.e. family, religion, etc.) eventually leading to a free-for-all that will require the strong hand of government to contain. The centrality and powerfulness of the State in modern liberalism is its most radical departure from traditional liberalism.

Bork does not deride the successes and accomplishment of liberalism when it still possessed the goals and intentions compatible with its tradition - e.g. civil rights for minorities, suffrage for women, etc. However, it quickly evolved into an entirely different beast in the mid-to-late 1960s and has never looked back. The fact that there are currently forty professed Socialists in the U.S. House of Representatives (all Democrat) is testimony to the extreme left-turn taken by those calling themselves liberal today.

Bork does deride the goals, intentions, and actions of this new breed of liberal. It is virulently anti-American and anti-Western Civilization. As it has with the term "liberalism," the modern liberal has hijacked worthy causes (e.g. civil rights) and has politicized them in order to advance their radical agenda. Modern liberalism wishes to rob America of its unique heritage and to replace it with a revolutionary concept of human nature and human governance.

Bork goes through the various components of society where modern liberalism has left the mark of its poison - crime, illegitimacy, welfare, abortion, assisted suicide, sex (feminism), race (racial-preferences), ethnicity (multi-culturalism), education (anti-intellectualism, post-modernism), religion, etc. While Bork is careful not to place the blame entirely on the 1960s radicals, he does point out that they were the climax of an ideological swing.

The 1960s radicals are now tenured professors and hold other positions of leadership and influence. They may no longer be assaulting police officers and burning buildings, but they continue to spread their poison in institutions of higher learning, government bureaucracies, think-tanks, and on the judicial bench. The impact of their influence permeates throughout society and is manifest especially on college campuses where the students of radical professors carry the torch of anti-Americanism, anti-Europeans, anti-capitalism, anti-Western Culture, anti-white, anti-male, etc.

Bork makes it clear that continuing down the current path can only spell disaster for America's future - where inter-racial, inter-gender, inter-ethnic antagonism reaches a peak of resentment and hostility leading to the breakdown of civil order.

Perhaps this is what modern liberals want - a revolution to remake America in their own image and dispense with its entire heritage. But this is clearly not what most Americans want, which leads to Bork's point that the liberal radicals are a small minority of élites that have an impact totally out of proportion to their numbers.

Bork offers several options for reversing the trend towards social implosion. However, he quickly reduces the choices to one that focuses on the re-assertion of institutions of order and virtue - family and religion. It is only by reviving these institutions that there may be any hope of taking the momentum out of the modern liberal onslaught. While Bork does sense a glimmer of hope in this approach, he wonders whether such an approach may merely slow the onslaught that will eventually end in the disintegration of our society and culture.

This book is an absolute eye-opener to what damage has already been wrought by modern liberalism. If there is any chance at all of taming and turning back the beast, the first step is to "know thy enemy." This book serves that purpose. Hence, I recommend it to every freedom-loving American. Obviously, most liberals won't like what Bork has to say, but I think most people calling themselves liberals today have no idea what some are doing under that label. Therefore, I recommend this book to liberals as well so that they can read for themselves what liberal radicals have done and are doing to undermine American culture and society.

Despite Robert Bork's upopularity in mainstream America, this seasoned observer and legal scholar offers a healthy dose of common sense regarding the moral and cultural decline of America. Moreover, he proposes workable solutions to the problems he elucidates. Bork, whose name became a household word when his nomination to the U.S. Supreme court was vigorously (and successfully) opposed by the far-left in American politics, nonetheless hits a nerve in SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH. He pointedly shows that the roots of our current cultural problems are deep in 1960s radicalism. While many believe that the 60s radicals have disappeared, Bork observes, he asserts that this is far from accurate. Indeed, those who launched protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago and who took over college campuses to show their angst over various injustices, are still alive and well, and in charge of many of our educational, cultural and political institutions. Perhaps the best example of Bork's premise is Bill Clinton, whom he saliently observes to be the quintessential baby-boomer radical who has grown up and risen to a position of great power with his philosophies essentially unchanged. Bork's well-written and thoroughly researched work is a tour de force of the rapidly decaying culture of the United States, and will prove to be thought-provoking even for those who disagree with the author and his beliefs. I heartily recommend this volume.

Judge Bork does a superb job of describing the various elements of destruction that have arisen from the application of modern liberalism to American society. He also offers best and worst case scenarios for the future of the Republic if the current trends continue.

Bork makes it clear that he speaks not of the traditional liberalism exercised by the Founding Fathers but rather an ideological departure from that tradition that has hijacked and bastardized the name.

The modern form of liberalism consists of radical egalitarianism, which inherently requires a coercive State. It also consists of a radical individualism that corrodes institutions of restraint (i.e. family, religion, etc.) eventually leading to a free-for-all that will require the strong hand of government to contain. The centrality and powerfulness of the State in modern liberalism is its most radical departure from traditional liberalism.

Bork does not deride the successes and accomplishment of liberalism when it still possessed the goals and intentions compatible with its tradition - e.g. civil rights for minorities, suffrage for women, etc. However, it quickly evolved into an entirely different beast in the mid-to-late 1960s and has never looked back. The fact that there are currently fifty-five professed Socialists in the U.S. House of Representatives (all Democrat) is testimony to the extreme left-turn taken by those calling themselves liberal today.

Bork does deride the goals, intentions, and actions of this new breed of liberal. It is virulently anti-American and anti-Western Civilization. As it has with the term "liberalism," the modern liberal has hijacked worthy causes (e.g. civil rights) and has politicized them in order to advance their radical agenda. Modern liberalism wishes to rob America of its unique heritage and to replace it with a revolutionary concept of human nature and human governance.

Bork goes through the various components of society where modern liberalism has left the mark of its poison - crime, illegitimacy, welfare, abortion, assisted suicide, sex (feminism), race (racial-preferences), ethnicity (multi-culturalism), education (anti-intellectualism, post-modernism), religion, etc. While Bork is careful not to place the blame entirely on the 1960s radicals, he does point out that they were the climax of an ideological swing.

The 1960s radicals are now tenured professors and hold other positions of leadership and influence. They may no longer be assaulting police officers and burning buildings, but they continue to spread their poison in institutions of higher learning, government bureaucracies, think-tanks, and on the judicial bench. The impact of their influence permeates throughout society and is manifest especially on college campuses where the students of radical professors carry the torch of anti-Americanism, anti-Europeans, anti-capitalism, anti-Western Culture, anti-white, anti-male, etc.

Bork makes it clear that continuing down the current path can only spell disaster for America's future - where inter-racial, inter-gender, inter-ethnic antagonism reaches a peak of resentment and hostility leading to the breakdown of civil order.

Perhaps this is what modern liberals want - a revolution to remake America in their own image and dispense with its entire heritage. But this is clearly not what most Americans want, which leads to Bork's point that the liberal radicals are a small minority of élites that have an impact totally out of proportion to their numbers.

Bork offers several options for reversing the trend towards social implosion. However, he quickly reduces the choices to one that focuses on the re-assertion of institutions of order and virtue - family and religion. It is only by reviving these institutions that there may be any hope of taking the momentum out of the modern liberal onslaught. While Bork does sense a glimmer of hope in this approach, he wonders whether such an approach may merely slow the onslaught that will eventually end in the disintegration of our society and culture.

This book is an absolute eye-opener to what damage has already been wrought by modern liberalism. If there is any chance at all of taming and turning back the beast, the first step is to "know thy enemy." This book serves that purpose. Hence, I recommend it to every freedom-loving American. Obviously, most liberals won't like what Bork has to say, but I think most people calling themselves liberals today have no idea what some are doing under that label. Therefore, I recommend this book to liberals as well so that they can read for themselves what liberal radicals have done and are doing to undermine American culture and society.

I was there, on campus, in '67, '68, and '69, wearing an ROTC uniform 2 days a week. The problem on campus was exactly as Judge Bork describes it. One could not have a rational discussion with the leftist students. They were morally superior, and just by dedicating myself to defending the Constitution of the United States, I was deemed their inferior intellectually. I was also less advantaged economically than they. We who served will not forget the arrogance we faced. Judge Bork nails down the moral difference between the privileged leftist children of the '60s and the less privileged who have made it on their own. We can never forget.

In this well-organized and often closely reasoned monograph Robert Bork lays the blame for every evidence of moral decline in this nation squarely on the shoulders of modern liberalism. Do not look here for "balance." Bork stakes out a right-wing ideological position and is not reluctant to be strident in so doing. He makes no apologies for his thesis that the liberalism of the latter half of this century is the root of all evil. As an ideological conservative myself, I was prepared for a more centrist approach, perhaps one which would point out liberalism's flaws but at the same time suggest corrective action. But Bork takes the position that modern liberalism is irredeemably immoral, espousing as it does all of the evils of radical egalitarianism, radical individualism, and moral relativism. Many of Bork's arguments are compelling, as he makes cogent cases against the demands for equality of outcomes rather than simply of opportunity; the individualistic drive toward hedonism and libertinism rather than freedom tempered by responsibility; and the absence of any true moral compass. Even staunch conservatives may find Bork's unremittingly harsh attack on liberalism embarrassingly vituperative. There is, nevertheless, so much truth in his opinions that the reader who approaches the book with an open mind is likely to lay it down with eyes open rather wider. By the way, I was amazed and amused at the number and intensity of the reviews posted by Amazon's customers. At my last reading of these, I found no indifferent takes on this book.

"Robert Bork will go down as one of history's footnotes. " ... says one reviewer. In the years since this book has been written, Robert Bork has been shown to be most prescient in his analysis. The Western world is indeed in decline and is following the model of the world's great thinkers from Aristotle to Shaw. The "Progressive" world view is a fantasy destined for a Road Warrior end. Democracies will die not from murder but suicide as it is often said. The coup de grace is this pocket Lenin called Obama et al. Who woulda thunk it? Robert Bork would have made a stellar justice, committed to the American Constitution and not a morphing euro-justice system. Now we are left with the likes of a Kagan.

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?

This book shows the differences in morality-based liberalism and modern liberalism which is based in nothing less than radical individualism. "If it feels good, do it." I urge people thinking about buying this book to go ahead with your purchase and read it. I was amazed at how some of the negative reviews here call Bork's case for censorship "shocking" and "scary". I can't think of a better example of how people on that side of the argument would rather scream and scare people away from rational debate. Bork bends over backwards before presenting his argument to give his true belief that censorship is a scary thought but then gives examples of cases where it might be the only solution to saving our society. Anyone who would dismiss as "shocking" or "scary" a call for censorship in the case of child rape and mutilation has some serious problems.

If you noticed how a large number of this book's negative reviews are written by people with ".edu" in their email address, then you need look no further for the validation of Bork's theory that the American educational establishment (a word they don't like to be called) continues to be the incubator of post-Port Huron liberalism. As someone who always considered himself a liberal in the classic sense, then found himself battling the universty's modern liberal elite while in college (and won, or escaped with my sanity) I can say with absolute certainty that Robert Bork is right on with his scathing analysis. While I take his view of rock and roll with a grain of salt, his observations on the bored youth of the sixties, and the effects of their misguided views are chillingly accurate.