Clarence Thomas is blowing my mind.

[richardf8]

I have held the man in utter contempt for more than a decade and a half.

But in today's SCOTUS ruling permitting the exercise of eminent domain he joined the dissent, declaring that the exercise of eminent domain in behalf of private interests would disproportionately affect poor and minority property owners. Add this to his dissent in the Medical Marijuana case, and I am finding myself surprised to note that he seems to be developing a more humane sensibility as he grows older. There are aspects of his jurisprudence that continue to trouble me, but he has shown himself this year to be far more compassionate than I have ever seen him in the past.

Indeed I am shocked further that this dissent, which is to my mind the correct ruling, was joined as well by O'Connor, Rehnquist and Scalia. Conservatives all, and all upholding the conservative value of keeping government off people's backs. And by people here, we mean natural persons, not corporations.

Comments

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

We can only hope his mind is entering into a "people's interest" mode. When Rehnquist goes, I thoroughly expect Bush to nominate the only circuit judge in the world who thought that the Dred Scott decision was a mighty fine piece of legal definition.

[kevinjdog.livejournal.com]

Actually reading up on this, I wonder why this seems to be a liberal issue. Usually liberals don't like legal decisions that give disproportionate favoritism to the rich; that's why we favor progressive taxation, I thought.

Count me in as a dissenter on this, I suppose.

[richardf8]

It's a real puzzler to me. It's like rather than breaking on Democrat/Republican lines, it broke on Statist/Libertarian lines, which happen to coincide on the court (they don't coincide in congress, where statism is a truly bipartisan value). The argument seems to be that if the state decides that forking land over to a private corporation is a public good, then it's a public good.

In light of that, Thomas' dissent is doubly surprising - after all, he dissented in the Medical Marijuana case on States' Rights grounds; but this is not something he would leave to state or local discretion.

[bluerain.livejournal.com]

He spoke out rather eloquently on the special significance of crossburning, a while back, and why it shouldn't be regarded as just another first amendment issue. For once, he actually performed one of the functions an African American on the court is uniquely able to perform, and did it well.

It was the first time I had ever not wanted to set his nads on fire. People are complicated.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Even Scalia...the event surprises me even more than Dick Cheney opposing a U.S. Constitutional Amendment against same-sex marriage. Only this time it's not so positive, seeing as I feel semi-betrayed by the Democrats.

I say "semi-betrayed" because it was already clear that the DNC doesn't know what it stands for anymore.

[richardf8]

One thing to keep in mind is that one or 2 of the Clinton appointees to the Supreme Court were Reagan appointees to the federal bench. The line between "Democrat" and "Republican" is not necessarily all that clear on the SC. Of course, the goal of the current administration is to make that line a lot clearer.

I vote democrat mostly because they don't do as much harm as quickly as the republicans do. But Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act and exchanged "Gays in the Military" for "Don't Ask Don't Tell." He also laid a lot of the groundwork for what would ultimately evolve into the Patriot Act with his own Anti-Terrorism legislation. They're all authoritarian corporate shills - you don't attain power without love of power, and you don't acquire money without love of money.

[unzammechat.livejournal.com]

We can only hope that the judgement of these judges is really a judgement, not a policy decision, not just the puppets of an party's interests...

Whoever Bush or his successor sticks in that chair, the best thing for the entire world is prolly for them to instantly betray their party for their country. So obviously, the party's candidate would be a puppet; not a real mensch (in the gender nonspecific sense). But it's not like we can blame politicans looking for like minds. ^^

Isn't it great that, as long as The Man cares mainly about loyalty and fidelity to him, anybody really patriotic will be looked over for the job??

...maybe I just need lithium.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

A riveting post and thread!