Twenty Years of Justice Thomas

[Valin]

WSJ:
John Yoo
10/21/11



This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court. In his first two decades on the bench, Justice Thomas has established himself as the original Constitution's greatest defender against elite efforts at social engineering. His stances for limited government and individual freedom make him the left's lightning rod and the tea party's intellectual godfather. And he is only halfway through the 40 years he may sit on the high court.

Justice Thomas's two decades on the bench show the simple power of ideas over the pettiness of our politics. Media and academic elites have spent the last 20 years trying to marginalize him by drawing a portrait of a man stung by his confirmation, angry at his rejection by the civil rights community, and a blind follower of fellow conservatives. But Justice Thomas has broken through this partisan fog to convince the court to adopt many of his positions, and to become a beacon to the grass-roots movement to restrain government spending and reduce the size of the welfare state.

Clarence Thomas set the table for the tea party by making originalism fashionable again. Many appointees to the court enjoy its role as arbiter of society's most divisive questions—race, abortion, religion, gay rights and national security—and show little desire to control their own power. Antonin Scalia, at best, thinks interpreting the Constitution based on its original meaning is "the lesser evil," as he wrote in a 1989 law journal article, because it prevents judges from pursuing their own personal policies. Justice Thomas, however, thinks that the meaning of the Constitution held at its ratification binds the United States as a political community, and that decades of precedent must be scraped off the original Constitution like barnacles on a ship's hull.
(Snip)

Happy Anniversary Justice Thomas! May you sit for many more years.

Comment Section Here

[Pepper]

Great article, Valin!

 

"He called for an individual right to own guns before it was cool" -- John Yoo

 

from article.

 

And how the Left just loathes this successful black conservative Jurist. Justice Thomas just doesn't want to fit the mold of the old plantation that Jesse Jackson and Sharpton hang on to and that the media support and endorse.

[Valin]

Great article, Valin!

 

"He called for an individual right to own guns before it was cool" -- John Yoo

 

from article.

 

And how the Left just loathes this successful black conservative Jurist. Justice Thomas just doesn't want to fit the mold of the old plantation that Jesse Jackson and Sharpton hang on to and that the media support and endorse.

 

 

If the Democrats lose the Black vote...they end up a minority party.

[RandyM]

If the Democrats lose the Black vote...they end up a minority party.

 

 

Is that an oxymoron?

[clearvision]

Wait is Justice Thomas Black? I just assumed he was what ever race Herman Cain is. He certainly is not Black like Obama.