Clarence Thomas on Wednesday delivered a televised broadside against progressivism, a political philosophy he described as an existential threat to America and the principles that founded it 250 years ago.

“Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” Thomas said in a speech at the University of Texas Austin Law School pegged to the nation’s upcoming milestone birthday.

A spirit of “cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus” toward America – by Americans – has taken hold, Thomas said in remarks carried live on CSPAN.

        • RockaiE@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          He’s a corrupt sexual assaulter who thinks black people shouldn’t receive any assistance despite the lack of civil rights they’ve historically had, and feels liberals are the cause of all his problems and intends to piss them off every chance he gets.

    • yesman@lemmy.world
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      Fred Hampton once said (paraphrasing from memory) “a pig is a pig is a pig. No matter black, white, yellow, or polka dot”.

      I think this applies here in the sense that race can be ignored as a factor in the corrupt, the same way you can rule out a coherent doctrine. The only academic question about Thomas is has he received a bribe, or is he angling for a gratuity?

      I’m saying this as someone who’s tried to comprehend his political/ legal philosophy for years. Observers have often said that Thomas believes that black Americans can find more equality in capital than they can with the franchise. The reasoning goes that black Americans can never rely on voting because they’re a permanent minority and therefore perpetually dependent on the good will of white America; good will that can never be trusted. Valid point IMO. But nah… Justice Thomas was just corrupt.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      He had nephew he had been the legal guardian of he cut contact with when was 19 and Harlan Crowe stopped paying for his tuition.

      He’s literally an Uncle Tom.

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    8 days ago

    Well if he is so against progress, we can get him to start picking cotton again

  • theprogressivist @lemmy.world
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    Nothing more pathetic than a man who hates himself so much that he’s willing to take his whole race and country back four centuries just to feel superior. Fuck you, Clarence.

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    A spirit of “cynicism, rejection, hostility and animus” toward America – by Americans – has taken hold, Thomas said in remarks carried live on CSPAN.

    Progressivism means Americans criticize America because they are interested in making it better. Conservativism refuses to criticize America because it has no interest in making it better.

    And that’s why conservativism is ultimately so pathetic. To fix flaws you have to admit to them, and put in work to change your own habits and the world around you, both of which are hard. To refuse to acknowledge flaws is easy, and you don’t have to fix anything about yourself or the world. It’s a fundamentally infantile, weak way of existing.

    When I see people with Thomas’ opinions, I think, “Well, there’s a child whose mind just got older, but never grew up.” It’s incredible to realize, as an adult, just how many of the “adults” around us fit that model, and how much power they often end up having.

    • OwOarchist@pawb.social
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      Conservativism refuses to criticize America

      Convservatism criticizes America all the fucking time. Anytime anybody in America gets a little too “woke” for them.

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        Small but very important distinction:

        They criticize Americans. They think (or act that way for the cameras) that America is perfect and everything is preordained. That is a point of faith, not-coincidentally - criticizing America elicits the same defensiveness as criticizing their religion. Any issues are with flawed Americans misinterpreting the grand plan of the Founders (as if they didn’t also disagree with each other) or God, but nobody gets away with trashing “America,” except Trump whose believers instantly recompile it to mean “America-as-long-as-it’s-run-by-democrats-and-women-and-non-whites-and-woke-ideology.”

        This is why conservatives routinely separate people into “real Americans” versus everyone else.

    • GalacticSushi@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      Progressivism means Americans criticize America because they are interested in making it better. Conservativism refuses to criticize America because it has no interest in making it better.

      I’d just like to add that freely and openly criticizing your country, its government, and its leadership is the founding ideal of America. It’s rich that he brings up “the premise of the declaration of independence and hence our form of government” as if exercising freedom of speech is not the cornerstone of both.

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    Biden ran the Senate judiciary committee for approving Thomas and buried Anita hills testimony on Thomas’s sexual harassment, after promising Hill time to speak. Yet another win for the centrists that keeps on giving all these years later. That fiasco alone should have sunk that aipac idiot’s chances at the vp and then president spots. And it is one of innumerable outright idiotic fuckups of Biden’s career.

    This right here, this Clarence Thomas BS, is the inevitable result of centrists philosophies.

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    7 days ago

    Man who 100% benefitted from progressive policies in his youth seeks to pull ladderup behind him. Tale as old as time. Hell, he said he used a Carnegie library before desegregation.

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    8 days ago

    Fucking, 30 years of bad headlines from this one POS.

    WHERE THE HELL ARE THE:

    term limits/ votes of no confidence/ calls for impeachment/ efforts to reform the Judicial/ … The adults?

    • Brave Little Hitachi Wand@feddit.uk
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      I was ranting about this the other day, I’m afraid that most people, at least most Americans, are not good enough at standing up to authority for America to fundamentally work as it is supposed to. Some jobs, especially in politics and law, inherently require a pathological John Adams-like willingness to be a problem for the whole ship to stay afloat.

    • tristynalxander@mander.xyz
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      I don’t really know about term limits. Maybe people should be forced to take a break now and then no more than two consecutive terms in a row and not more than a third of the terms over some period of time just to prevent entrenchment, but I don’t want to stop people from voting for whoever they want to vote for generally.

      I care about term lengths far more. Life terms? Yeah, no. To me, 6-8 years would a lot more reasonable maybe ten years if you really believe it’d be too unstable otherwise, but these lifetime appointments are insane. Honestly, I’m surprised terms that long don’t make them assassination targets. We should shorten their terms to prevent them from becoming targets for people who target those with too much power.