Clarence Thomas blames Americans for Supreme Court's erosions of rights: "You protect your liberty"

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that Americans are "more interested in their iPhones than their Constitution," according to a recently released book.

"I think we as citizens have lost interest and that's been my disappointment," Thomas said in an interview. "That certainly was something that bothered Justice Scalia, that people tend to be more interested in their iPhones than their Constitution. They're interested in what they want rather than what is right as a country."

The justice's remarks were featured in "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words," a book written by Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta, who interviewed Thomas for more than 30 hours between November 2017 and March 2018. In the book, Thomas argued that America's alleged lack of interest in the Constitution might lead to a loss of personal liberty.

"You protect your liberty. It's your country. [The Supreme Court is] one part of the effort, and it is the obligation of the citizens to at least know what their liberties are and to be informed," he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/clarence-thomas-blames-americans-for-supreme-court-s-erosions-of-rights-you-protect-your-liberty/ar-AAYWY6U

So it's our fault for not keeping you in check? You're like the abusive husband/boyfriend who beats his significant other screaming, "See what you made me do!!!!"

[Mike_in_LA]

1. OK, Boomer....

:rolleyes:

[AllTooEasy]

8. What did he say that was FACTUALLY incorrect?

I'll just reference his quotes above, and not his garbage book or the MSN link:

"I think we as citizens have lost interest" - Uh, Yep. My fellow posters on DU have frequently complained about American Indifference, especially Dem voter apathy, for atleast a decade.

"people tend to be more interested in their iPhones than their Constitution." - In general, that's undebatable

"You protect your liberty. It's your country. [The Supreme Court is] one part of the effort, and it is the obligation of the citizens to at least know what their liberties are and to be informed," - Who seriously has a problem with the facts of those statements? Obama has made numerous similar statements. We Dems must take charge of our political destiny, and not put blind faith in our political institutions.

I do take exception to this comment "They're interested in what they want rather than what is right as a country." His "right" is completely wrong, and reeks of theocratic ideals.

A broken clock is correct twice a day. We should head most of his statements above, and turn them around against his contemptable ass, Repukes, and the Christian Conservatives.

[Mike_in_LA]

10. That stupid iPhone comment.

Just a “get of my lawn” moment by Clarence.

[GenThePerservering]

9. Nothing personal,

but can't wait until the insult "OK Boomer" is consigned to the flames where it belongs.

Signed, One of many Boomers who have been fighting for the rights of the people since McGovern, and helped gained what is being stripped away now, but will keep fighting.

[ShazzieB]

11. Agreed. 😬

[Aristus]

3. Sounds to me a lot like "If you don't go out in the streets and randomly kill lots of people

with your Constitutionally-protected guns, you don't really care about liberty."

[deminks]

4. Is there a 25th amendment for SCROTUS? nt

[brush]

5. Error in wiring, doesn't allow the flexibility needed...

to adjust to new and changed conditions.

IMO that's a description of how the strict constructionist/republican/conservative brain functions, or dysfunctions if you will. And in a Black man it's quite ridiculous as it's glaringly obvious that a Black man insisting on the so-called original interpretation of the Constitution should've never accepted his nomination to the Court back in the '90s as he well knows that he would've been only three-fifths of a person to his mentor Justice Scalia, the one jurist he still refers to and the one jurist most responsible for extolling the etched-in-stone mindset of originalism, and he certainly should know that Scalia would not have considered him worthy of sitting next to him on the SCOTUS bench back when the Constitution was written.

So Uncle Clarence should cease with the pretend cosplay and step the fu_k down, or at least break the mind shackles and step out of the darkness of the right and move into the light.

[slightlv]

6. Until *rump stepped into office,

I didn't know I could hate somebody with a white hot passion. Until Clarence Thomas and this Scotus, I didn't know I could hate a group of people like this. Is this an uncovering of a shadow side of me that was better left covered? Or a piece of me I'm better knowing about? I'm not sure. I'm definitely not comfortable with it. I've always considered myself a good person. These people are showing me piece of myself I'm not particularly happy about. But frack it, they're worth every bit of the hatred! Telling me I'm worth less than a corpse?! And telling me I did it to myself, when I've been fighting against this very thing since I was 16 years old? I do beg to differ! Especially since I see something very telling, psychologically, in the one doing the telling. They're all very, very broken people in so many different ways.

[Bucky]

7. "might lead to a loss of personal liberty." -- And he's just the man to do this!

Clarence is like...

[ShazzieB]

13. Oh, STFU, Clarence!

Just STFU.

If you're going to make nutty rulings that people hate, at least be an adult and own them! :grr

We have the RIGHT to be upset with any decision of yours, and you have NO right to chastise us for being upset!

And yes, damn it, we are upset right now. How the hell do you expect people not to be upset when you render a decision that is inevitably going to screw up some people's lives and even end some of them? JFC, how dense can you possibly be?

The fact of the matter is, YOU don't care what we think! We know that, you know that, everybody knows that! You just don't like it when our feelings make you uncomfortable. That's too damned bad, but it doesn't give you the right to lecture us about not having what you consider to be the "right" feelings.

So jut quit your whining already, and learn to take it like an adult when you make a radical decision and people get upset about it.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. The Five Worst Supreme Court Justices In American History, Ranked

In the legal community, Thomas is considered to be one of the worst SCOTUS justices in history

Link to tweet

https://thinkprogress.org/the-five-worst-supreme-court-justices-in-american-history-ranked-f725000b59e8/

5) Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas is the only current member of the Supreme Court who has explicitly embraced the reasoning of Lochner Era decisions striking down nationwide child labor laws and making similar attacks on federal power. Indeed, under the logic Thomas first laid out in a concurring opinion in United States v. Lopez, the federal minimum wage, overtime rules, anti-discrimination protections for workers, and even the national ban on whites-only lunch counters are all unconstitutional.

Though Thomas’s views are rare today, they have, sadly, not been the least bit uncommon during the Supreme Court’s history. He makes this list because, frankly, he should know better than his predecessors. As I explain in Injustices, many of the justices who resisted progressive legislation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were, like Field, motivated by ideology. Many others, however, were motivated by fear of the rapid changes state and federal lawmakers implemented in the wake of the even more rapid changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution. It was possible to believe, in a world where factories, railroads, and the laws required to regulate factories and railroads were all very new things, that these laws would, as Herbert Hoover once said about the New Deal, “destroy the very foundations of our American system” by extending “government into our economic and social life.”

But Thomas has the benefit of eighty years of American history that Hoover had not witnessed when he warned of an overreaching government. In that time, the Supreme Court largely abandoned the values embraced by Justice Field, and the United States became the mightiest nation in the history of politics and the wealthiest nation in the history of money.

[Blue_Tires]

15. fuck that asshole... seriously...