Slashdot Mirror
LinuxPlanet Interviews Robert Bork
Greg writes: "Robert Bork, former Supreme Court appointee from the Reagan era and a recent entrant in the MS antitrust case, did an
interview
over at LinuxPlanet. The topic? The Evil Empire's court settlement." Bork isn't actually new to the Microsoft case or to the subject of monopolies -- his legal experience makes this an interesting read, even for those who don't consider Microsoft an "evil empire."
Bork is widely acknowledged in legal circles as one of our country's greatest legal minds.
He is widely respected for his integrity.
He is a well known legal conservative and strong believer in strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution.
Anyone who thinks that the Microsoft case is a left-wing attack on big business should pay careful attention to Bork's words. Whatever else Bork may be, he ain't no left-wing anti-business type.
Let me note that for the record, Reagan attempted to put him on the Supreme Court, but he was rejected. This was because of ideological reasons, hence the term "borked" was invoked when Bush appointed Ashcroft Attorney General. Anyways, just wanted to note that while he was nominated, he was not actually placed on the Supreme Court, as "Robert Bork, former Supreme Court appointee" suggests.
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
"I believe in innovation, not litigation."
(I almost expected him to follow with "if the glove don't fit, you must acquit". But I digress.)
Anyway, this statement could have -- and probably DID -- come straight from the mouths of Microsoft's PR department, probably in the same envelope as a campaign contribution (to be fair, I'll bet Gore got one too).
Our best hope is that the President's advisors listen to intelligent conservative commentators like George Will, who wrote an excellent column in the Washington Post about Enron, in which he made the following point:
Capitalist economies don't spring up automatically, like crabgrass. They are dependent upon a complex set of laws. Capitalism is a government program.
Will was speaking about laws which require accurate financial disclosure so that people have faith in the market. But the same priciples hold for the right to fair competition. Without that right, where the success of a startup [e.g., Netscape] leading to its imminent demise by those seeking to maintain their control [e.g., Microsoft], why would anyone risk their money to enter the marketplace? The result in such a case is stagnation, and the loss of a healthy economy.
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
This is a really good point. This case was about the browser issue.
Once upon a time, not too many years ago, there was real innovation in the browser market. People could barely keep up with the features coming left and right from Netscape, Spyglass, Mosaic forks, Cyberdog, etc., and features were piled on left an right. Forms! Tables! JavaScript! Java! DHTML!
Then Microsoft crept over the 50% market share mark. Now the new browser feature people get excited about is TABS, for Pete's Sake! They're still trying to get a decent CSS2 implementation done, ECMAScript is stagnant at best, and Java applets still don't work all that reliably.
And it's been a few years. There's no innovation to be found. Yeah, Mozilla has some froody features, and XUL may still kick ass someday, but if you want real innovation, you need competition, and any capitalist can tell you that. If IE had to compete on the open market they might even run lint on it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
from: http://www.techlawjournal.com/atr/80421bork.htm
Robert Bork formerly practiced antitrust law, taught antitrust law at Yale Law School for nearly twenty years, and wrote what is perhaps the most influential book on antitrust law in recent decades. (The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself, New York, Basic Books, Inc., 1978.)
From historychannel.com:
"Three of the very best men in the Nixon administration have been ousted from it because they put loyalty to the law of our land above loyalty to Richard Nixon." (October 20, 1973)
-Alan Cranston, U.S. senator of California
On October 20, 1973, U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned after refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who earlier in the day had announced that he would not accept White House summaries of the Watergate tapes. The Watergate tapes, subpoenaed three months before under the authority of the Senate, were official recordings of White House conversations that were believed to heavily implicate the president and his staff in the Watergate affair. Hours after Richardson resigned, Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, also unwilling to fire Cox, likewise handed in his resignation. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork agreed to fire the special prosecutor. Later that night, Alan Cranston, a Democratic senator, reacted to what became known as the "Saturday Night Massacre." On Capitol Hill, the event galvanized congressional outrage at President Nixon's conduct, and on October 23, even as the president finally agreed to turn over the tapes, eight impeachment resolutions were introduced against him in the House of Representatives.
Before you start praising the supposed high moral character of Bork, perhaps you should take in a little history lesson:
On Oct. 20, 1973, Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson resigned in protest rather than carry out Richard Nixon's order to fire Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused to fire Cox and was fired. Nixon's Solicitor General, Robert H. Bork, who was next in command, carried out Nixon's orders and fired Cox.
Anyone who would help Nixon cover up Watergate by firing the Watergate Special Prosecutor lacks the ethics, integrity, and judgement to serve as a Justice of the Supreme Court. I, for one, am happy that the Democrats hae real integrity and blocked the appointment of that scoundrel.
Exactly what line on their income statement (man, I hope that's not a temporary link...) does the loss due to piracy fit into? How could they write off such a loss without writing the creation of the pirated software as a revenue in the first place? Does the "lost software" appear on their balance sheet anywhere?
I've never had any use for Bork since I heard that he wrote that he found civil rights legislation stopping restaurant owners from discriminating on racial grounds "repugnant", then later upheld Georgia (I think) law under which sex (in this case, gay) between consenting adults in their own home could be illegal and the police could come in and arrest them. For this dipshit, government interference is bad - unless it's interfering in something he's against, then it's OK. (Of course, I'm inconsistent in the opposite direction, but I think it's a much better argument that the government DOES have a place in restaurants and NOT in the bedroom.)
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
The Macintosh for one. It runs a very nice version of Microsoft Office that is fully compatible with the Windows version.
So even if you absolutely must have 100% compatibility with MS Office, you still have a very viable choice. Or are you saying that the Macintosh is crap?
Either "constructionist" means "as reasoned by those that constructed it", or the term is meaningless.
I didn't invent "constructionist" as a term, nor did I invent going back to the arguments and reasons for something to discover its arguments and reasons for existing. That particular discovery technique somewhat predates me as you would know if you read a book.
"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry
ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the
spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be
squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable
one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson,
June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 32.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics