Clarence Thomas is widely considered one of the worst Supreme Court justices in memory, and is famously uninvolved, going years without a question; he has also written harshly about how he feels affirmative action cheapened his degrees.
Thomas is extremely conservative, far out of the mainstream of American legal thought. That said, worse Supreme Court Justice is roughly like worst tenured physicist at MIT. It hardly means he isn't smart. In particular, not-talking-during-oral-argument doesn't mean not involved, and is another arguments-are-soldiers attack by liberal American legal society on someone who is admittedly far out of mainstream legal thought.
Your reference to his position on affirmative action is particularly confusing to me, because his point is a standard, fairly mainstream argument against AA. If that was his most extreme legal position, he'd be the swing vote, not the farthest right (or second farthest, depending on how one counts Alito).
The rest of your post is well taken, and I will have to think on it.
When was the last time you saw a retarded person bashing their head against the wall?
I can only point to my professional work as an attorney for special education students to give you a sense of my experience with what an 80 IQ student is like.
Thomas is extremely conservative, far out of the mainstream of American legal thought.
As are Rehnquist, Scalia, and others, yet Thomas is by far the least respected, least cited, and least noted. (Of all the people you had to cite as accomplished black people, you had to pick Clarence Thomas...) If Thomas is still so 'extreme' despite his bully pulpit for expounding & enforcing his views, that also says a lot about how good a justice he has been.
That said, worse Supreme Court Justice is roughly like worst tenured physicist at MIT.
Not really. The...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: