Nadir is outraged that Bush has over-stepped his constitutional authority as President on numerous occassions. I share that view. But what about the Supreme Court also doing so? A new book about Clarence Thomas praises Thomas as an adherant to the US Constitution.
Before I knew anything about Thomas, I was a liberal/leftist, and despised him and considered hime to be a self-hating, anti-black idiot. As my leftist status was disintegrating, I remember noticing that CSPAN was about to broadcast a speach by Thomas, at some public funciton. Surely my leftist position on Thomas could not be wrong! Surely Thomas would expose himself to be an intellectual lightweight. Boy, was I wrong. They guy was intelligent, humorous, knowlegable, captivating... everything the opposite of what I certainly "knew". A fully functioning intellectual, and a heavy weight at that. This became one of many events along my path to transformation from Leftist to Reformed Leftist: subjecting what I "knew" to open-minded scrutiny.
Among the many charges leveled against Thomas' intelligence is that in hearing cases, he rarely asks the attending attorneys any questions, and his legal writings are very brief. I found that his supporter's charactorization of this is accurate: the other SC jurors use the question periods and their writings to impress the world, whereas Thomas correctly regards his job as simple -- compare the appealed law and ruling to the current US constitution, and ask a simple question: does the US Constitution permit it?
I think that Bush made a mistake by not moving this guy to Chief Justice.
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Thomas' interpretations of Constitutional law stem from his constructionist mindset. He is stuck in the 18th century.
I oppose some of his rulings, namely his permission to display religious symbols on state property. Other than that, I think his rulings reflect the best of 18th century legal interpretation of the US constitution, including the belief by Thomas that even the constituion even without the pre-Civil War ammendments did not permit slavery or racial descrimination, that the "3/5ths compromise" contradicted other portions of the constitution.
Nadir, please provide support that Thomas holds any legal views indicative of a repressive 18th century thinker.
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