Robert Bork,RIP

Robert Bork passed away today.

He was an odd sort of inspiration to me.

I read the Constitution for the first time in the summer of 1987. Upon Democratic attacks on Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, I began to wonder...

• Why attack the man with the best resume for the Supreme Court, perhaps ever?
• Why attack a man who at least has a theory of how to interpret the Constitution?

It became clear to me that Democrats believed the Constitution had no meaning at all. Whatever they want, the Constitution permits; whatever they don't want, the Constitution forbids. 

And I didn't want a government like that.  Bork's "original intent" philosophy seemed to me to at least provide some predictability and restraint in government.

So the Bork hearings helped steer me to the "right" and a form of Ron Paul (before I'd heard of him) form of conservatism through college and the 1990's that ultimately led to classical liberalism/post-statism/libertarianism/zero-aggressionism. However you want to label it, it's  far removed from Bork's own thinking.

So thank you, Judge Bork, and thank you, Ronald Reagan, for nominating him. You stirred my interest in these matters.

(Or should I say, damn you both: you stirred my interest in these matters.)