Everyone is talking about this of course:
“Today there is much focus on our rights,” Justice Thomas said. “Indeed, I think there is a proliferation of rights.”
“I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said. “Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?”
Most of the discussion has focussed on the idea of having too many right, but my question is this: how fucking scary is the idea of a government-authored Bill of Obligations? If that doesn’t sound like Stalin or Pol Pot or Orwell, I don’t know what does.
Update. In the comments, T-Rex writes:
Now I am absolutely thrilled to go see him speak at the U of M Law School the day after tomorrow.
It would be interesting to see if someone can get Thomas to comment on the Coleman-Franken race at this event. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Thomas express the opinion that Coleman deserves to win.
Conrads Ghost
And this brainiac is a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States, whining like a drunk on a barstool. Nice work, if you can get it.
ice9
Let’s not swirl up Orwell with Pol Pot and Stalin. Maybe "Orwell’s" and Pol Pot’s, etc.
ice
r€nato
Bill of Obligations? I think that’s called ‘federal laws’.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that it wasn’t George W. who put Thomas on the court, it was his father. Thomas would have been a perfect W admin appointee: completely incompetent and a giant FUCK YOU to Thurgood Marshall’s legacy.
Ed Marshall
This would be why Clarence Thomas hasn’t taken a question from the bench in three years. Part of him knows better than to acknowledge the demons running around inside his skull.
Ash
And he’s only 60 years old, dammit.
Incertus
I actually talked about another part of it, namely his love for being marched into a classroom with a crucifix and a daily pledge of allegiance. I had a slightly different take on that experience, as you might expect.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
What about the Bill of Sale, when Phil Gramm sold America to the financial and insurance industries? Can’t we talk about that one, Justice Thomas?
Evolved Deep Southerner
While Thomas has never historically granted many interviews, every one I can remember seeing, reading or hearing has been really unsettling. Not only in what he says – by his own account, his psychopath granddad did a real number on him – but in his mannerisms. I remember the "60 Minutes" interview when he laughed, or at least tried to fake it. Everything laughed but his eyes. Creeped me the fuck out.
anonevent
Supreme Court Justices should be obligated and should be held responsible for following the Constitution. Once Thomas follows that, then we’ll talk.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
Damn those liberal activist judges, referring to non-existent amendments in the Constitution and legislating from the bench! Err, wait, Thomas is conservative?
And I used to think Scalia was the worst.
r€nato
One of the very, very few times Clarence Thomas made any sense whatsoever was with regards to his dissent in Virginia v. Black, which he did not think went far enough in upholding the constitutionality of a Virginia law banning cross-burning.
As always with conservatives, they only find compassion when they feel personally affected.
ihop
i would prefer to think of it as our "bill of daily duties"
flounder
Weren’t these assholes whining a week ago that Democrats were making it too easy to volunteer in a government service program?
ChrisB
Yeah, for some reason our Founding Fathers didn’t see the need to amend our Constitution to add a Bill of Obligations or a Bill of Responsibilities. But they did see the need for a Bill of Rights. Amazing that a Supreme Court justice would care about the former but not the latter.
Tymannosourus Rex
Now I am absolutely thrilled to go see him speak at the U of M Law School the day after tomorrow. Of course, I do feel that I have a right to enjoy a properly heated auditorium… it is Minnesota after all.
Martin
Well, the comments from someone who was there suggest that it’s rather taken out of context. Thomas was referring to people that think they have extraordinary rights which government is obligated to fill (like the right to have every citizen personally inspect the President’s original birth certificate). And that’s a fair enough thing to comment on.
On the obligation side, he was commenting on how citizens should step up more often to support each other and society at large. That too is a fair enough thing to comment on, but given that Thomas is a theocrat, much as others of his ilk, I agree that such a Bill of Obligations sounds frightening. Of course, it’s pretty clear to me that he just means the 10 Commandments and whatever Leviticus passages he finds useful.
And you can be damned sure that if a Democrat had suggested such a thing, the wingers would be in full meltdown, but Thomas is such an easy mark, perhaps we shouldn’t jump at the bait.
John Cole
Sounds like liberal fascism, if you ask me.
Also, appeaser.
Incertus
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch: I can’t remember who said it, maybe Publius at Obsidian Wings, but he says Scalia is worse, if only because at least Thomas is consistent in his world view. Scalia decides how he wants the case to turn out and then fits his decision to match it, but Thomas is a hard-core originalist, even though that theory makes about as much sense as playing golf with featheries.
khead
You know, if he’s really tired I suggest retirement from the bench and not retiring to the den to watch a movie.
J.D. Rhoades
At the risk of sounding cliched, if Nancy Pelosi had said something like this, the wingnuts would be having aneurysms.
Balconespolitics
@J.D. Rhoades: I was thinking the same. A Democrat saying the same would trigger a 72-hour bashfest on the Fox News Network, and cause another surge in gun sales nationwide.
John Doe
It’s called Form 1040 — go yell at some Republicans about skirting obligations.
Incertus
@Balconespolitics: Yes, but that’s because obligation to Republicans means loving Jesus and polishing Reagan’s
knobgravesite while to Democrats, obligation means aborting gay-married fetuses with socialized medicine and electing a Muslim terrorist who was born in Kenya to Malcolm X to be President.Jon H
I suppose he isn’t familiar with the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Looks pretty open-ended to me!
KCinDC
Any comments from the people who’ve been calling Obama’s proposed volunteer corps an enslavement of citizens to the government and the equivalent of the Hitler Youth?
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Incertus:
My friend in law school also regularly mocks Scalia for the very reasons you mention. While I’m no legal scholar and haven’t pored through every single one of Scalia’s legal body of work, the few that I have read indicates, to me at least, a rather schizophrenic approach to decision making.
However, to be fair, I think the truth is that many people have a tendency to gravitate towards a position based upon emotions or ‘gut feelings’ and then attempt to justify their positions with supporting facts and arguments. To think that Supreme Court justices are immune from this is naive, IMHO.
The most vivid example I remember of contradictory Supreme Court rulings involves the cases of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia. Basically, the Supreme Court went from declaring that the Cherokee tribe was a "denominated domestic dependent nation" (i.e. not a sovereign nation) to deciding that they were a sovereign nation within the span of a year. We’re not even talking about several years, let alone decades like we’ve got between more famous cases like Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. The same justices (under John Marshall) decided both cases.
In a way, that’s both disturbing and strangely comforting. Cognitive dissonance doesn’t seem to have lock for specific time periods or specific groups of people. I have to remind myself of this fact whenever the idiocy from the MSM, blogs, politicians, and random commenters starts overwhelming me.
Whitey
T-Rex, not only I am seeing him speak at UMN in his public event, Thomas is also teaching a class session that I’m in earlier in the day, with about 50 or so students. Suffice to say, this will probably come up.
Also, there’s an outside chance I’ll get to meet him tomorrow or Wednesday. Anyone with any line that’s appropriate to say to him yet subtly subversive?
Edit: I also realize that my sn is horribly inappropriate at some level. No offense intended.
Bulworth
I wonder what the teabag people think about the good Justice’s dim view of "grievances"?
DougJ
You’re Michelle Obama aren’t you?
Tymannosourus Rex
@Whitey:
I’m assuming he’s teaching Con Law? If so, despite his bench history, that’s a pretty kick ass experience.
Other than politely asking him to clarify what he meant by a Bill of Obligations, I’m not sure there’s a good/acceptable way to call out a sitting Justice without the Dean getting all up in your face ;).
ronathan richardson
When was the last time that conservatism had a coherent argument? This isn’t some whimsical idea by Thomas–Republican leaders consistently claim that we are a bunch of phony victims who sit around and whine whenever we’re asked to do anything, but every time the government does call on people to do anthing outside of killing brown people, the republicans scream that the government is taking away their freedoms and constitutional rights.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
AFAIC Clarence Thomas is the craziest sumbitch in government.
There is no way I am paying any attention to his nutty ideas.
Jon H
@Whitey: "Also, there’s an outside chance I’ll get to meet him tomorrow or Wednesday. Anyone with any line that’s appropriate to say to him yet subtly subversive?"
Ask him what he thinks of the Ninth Amendment.
Mark S.
@Jon H:
I once went to a speech by Scalia and someone asked him this. Best I could tell, he didn’t think it meant anything at all.
It’s not completely out there. Hugo Black thought the same thing.
Keith
If he’s so interested in a Bill of Obligations, I would suggest he contact his local elected representatives about it, just like the rest of us non-legislators.
asiangrrlMN
@Tymannosourus Rex: What????? He’s coming here tomorrow? What time? Oh, I can just look it up, I suppose.
Can’t the right do anything other than whine? It’s been three months, people (not even). SUCK IT UP!
Francis
9th? wuss. ask him about the court’s 11th Amendment jurisprudence. (in which Scalia joins Rehnquist in finding that the whole diversity language in the 11th A. is surplusage, and states are essentially immune from citizen suits in federal court).
[It’s late, i’m crocked, and i might have this entirely wrong. other members of the BJ Bar Assoc. are invited to correct me.]
MacsenMifune
Yeah I’ve heard of obligations they had them in the middle ages, now how well did that work. John are these new ads context sensitive because for some reason this post is giving me an ad about spicing up my desktop, not a complaint just kinda weird.
Nancy Irving
“I am often surprised by the virtual nobility that seems to be accorded those with grievances,” he said.
Funny that, coming from someone who has a chip on his shoulder that weighs a ton. It’s hard to think of anyone in public life who has more of a sense of grievance than Clarence Thomas.
whitey
@ T-Rex: It’s essentially something like a federal law class; it’s a federal courts class sitting with a conflicts class and another class. It’ll be a good experience even though Thomas is crazy.
@Jon Duly noted.
NonyNony
@r€nato:
Pretty much. Follow the law and pay your taxes. There you go – there’s your Bill of Obligations right there.
I’m not surprised that Thomas would say something like this – it’s a refrain I’ve been hearing from conservative baby boomers for decades now. Drives me up a wall – in most cases it’s either a variant of "you kids get off my lawn" or of "damn minorities – back in MY day they knew their place" depending on the context.
Svensker
Is Clarence Thomas retarded or mentally ill? Seriously, is there something wrong with him?
maya
Also curious, was Thomas’ preoccupation with the military: Quotes from Gen Douglas MacArthur; Watching Private Ryan. And yet, how did he personally deal with his military Obligation?
He invoked his Right of deferment.
Just another Repo neo-con hypocrite.
Tymannosourus Rex
@DougJ
Well, if someone does ask, then we will know BJ readers are well represented at UMN Law.
joe from Lowell
“Shouldn’t there at least be equal time for our Bill of Obligations and our Bill of Responsibilities?” asked Thomas, before launching into an passionate insistence on textualist and originalist constitutional interpretation.
Enlightened Layperson
Clarence Thomas is an originalist who believes that the Constitution must be interpreted to mean exactly what in meant in 1787, and an ardent advocate of states’ rights.
I would suggest he get in a time machine and travel back to 1787. He would have the original experience, states rights would reign supreme, and he would have no rights the white man is bound to respect. What’s not to like?