Absolutely! A great man indeed!
1. My disgust with MSM and Democrats reached a crescendo the day I realized how much they had lied about Clarence Thomas.
1. My disgust with MSM and Democrats reached a crescendo the day I realized how much they had lied about Clarence Thomas.
2. Leaving aside the "high-tech lynching" Judge Thomas received at the hands of Democrats during his confirmation hearing, there were frequent reports in the media about Justice Thomas not being a bright bulb on the Supreme Court ever since he got on the court.
3. Judge Thomas's every move was under the microscope all the time. MSM and Democrats never accept defeat graciously. They relentlessly invent reasons to tear down opponents. Justice Thomas was criticized for not asking enough questions in court hearings.
4. Justice Thomas was next criticized for using other people's words in his court opinions. They even computed the ratio of "other people's words" to his own words in his opinions and compared it with all other opinions on the supreme court to point out that his ratio was higher.
5. If you didn't read the details you would think Justice Thomas's ratio was egregiously higher, because the headlines implied that. But if you looked at the details, you saw the difference was minuscule, something like 1-2%.
6. And that too because in the few opinions MSM had selected to analyze, Justice Thomas had included extensive verbiage from previous court decisions by was of pointing out the established precedents. For this the media had the gall to slander him viciously.
7. The implication was that Justice Thomas is not good with words. Well, if he doesn't ask too many questions during rapid fire court hearings and is not good with words, how thoughtful could he possibly be?
8. Turns out Justice Thomas explained his thinking in some interview that he doesn't feel the need to grandstand when he has already heard enough in response to questions from his colleagues. He only asks questions when he can bring out something relevant, new and important.
9. Chief among his critics was none other than the then Democratic Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, who said Justice Thomas “has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written.”
10. Guess what I decided to do? I thought why don't I see it for myself, and thus began my personal practice of actually reading Supreme Court decisions in full rather than relying on media reports about them.
11. One of the first such decisions I read in full was rendered in 2007 for Morse v. Frederick, better known as the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case. I was particularly interested in reading Justice Thomas's majority opinion.
12. I was blown away by Justice Thomas's writing. Agree or disagree with his conclusions, no sentient human who actually reads Justice Thomas's opinions can ever not be impressed with the quality of his writing, his thoughtfulness, his reasoning, and his awesome intellect.
13. After that, I had nothing but sheer contempt for Harry Reid as a human being. What a despicable lout? As I read more about Justice Clarence Thomas, it became clearer why MSM and Democrats attack him so maliciously. It's because he is so good at tearing down their shibboleths.
14. From his humble beginnings in Pin Point, Ga., where he lived in a shanty without indoor plumbing during the Jim Crow era, Justice Clarence Thomas has become the longest-serving black justice on the nation’s highest court.
15. He emerged dignified from an undignified Senate confirmation and went on to produce a body of jurisprudence that has been praised by constitutional scholars. He has now written more than 500 opinions, many of them contributing new and painstakingly researched analysis.
16. Thomas, throughout his career, never wavered from a set of principles that many liberals don’t think a black man can legitimately hold. He believes in individual rights, not group rights, a view enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
17. Thomas opposes racial preferences both because they are bad policy and because they have no basis in the Constitution. Thomas held those views long before he arrived on the court, but they have been powerfully expressed in many of his opinions.
18. In his concurrence in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, which involved a challenge to affirmative action in the university’s admissions program, Thomas reviewed the university’s arguments justifying its affirmative action program, ...
19. ... noted the similarities between those arguments and those previously made by defenders of slavery and segregation, and concluded: “Racial discrimination is never benign.”
20. As a result of these views, Thomas has earned the scorn and disdain of traditional black civil rights leadership and special interest groups — his opinions are a threat to their calls for quotas and set-asides.
21. Because Justice Thomas is a black man who challenges liberal orthodoxy, his legacy has often been minimized. His is a story that should be celebrated by all Americans. That it isn’t is a travesty.
22. History will look kindly upon Justice Thomas’s judicial legacy and on him as an individual. The people who know him best certainly do, and in time, I believe, most Americans will, too.
23. Happy Birthday, Justice Thomas!
The END
The END
Epilogue
To liberals who constantly accuse Republicans of racism and bigotry, ask this question:
"For a Supreme Court vacancy, if Republicans were given a choice between a Liberal White Straight Man and a Conservative Black Gay Woman, who do you think they will pick?"
To liberals who constantly accuse Republicans of racism and bigotry, ask this question:
"For a Supreme Court vacancy, if Republicans were given a choice between a Liberal White Straight Man and a Conservative Black Gay Woman, who do you think they will pick?"
