No, all of these quotes are about him having an activist agenda based on whatever his original interpretation of the Constitution is, and using original-ism to challenge breathtaking amounts of settled matters of constitutional law. "Mindlessly adhering to stare decisis" is not a good thing---however, dissenting 35 times when stipulating that you are, at the very least, nominally supportive of stare decisis seems to indicate a preference to go beyond merely stating that the Supreme Court is not infallible, and stating that the Supreme Court was grossly incompetent and that settled matters of constitutional law are to be questioned at every twist and turn.
Such as regressing us back to a pre-administrative state system. This is terrible because we no longer live in the halcyon days of a 19th century agrarian society where we communicated by messages taken by riverboat and where a man could own another man. Modern day society and the modern world are both too complicated to revert back to a governmental structure which cannot address these complications. Gutting the commerce clause and reading necessary and proper narrowly would mean abandoning the path we have taken - the path that has made America great .
The Supreme Court was grossly incompetent and settled matters of constitutional law, where they were settled in a way contrary to the constitution should be questioned. The go to case here is Wickard v. Filburn, which the court even managed to question at one point when they decided United States v. Lopez, but then re-affirmed when Scalia went against the constitution because he was anti-mar1juana in Gonzales v. Raich. The fact that the Supreme Court's judgment was less than stellar at times in the history of this country should be certain to all considering the fact that several justices in the '30s changes their opinions only when FDR threatened to expand the court until he had a majority that would approve his policies. If the court has been bullied into making decisions, the decisions should not be immune to review.
If you're challenging less than stellar cases, then fine. Originalist thinking does tend to have its' appeal, doesn't it? You can find another way to justify your rambling interpretation of the Constitution---by deriding the interpretation of dozens of justices before you, and going into whatever you think the Founding Fathers meant. On a sidebar, whether or not the Constitution is fallible itself given that it was written by, at the time, a group of 18th century men (some of which were slave-owners), and which probably never saw the rise of an America that was world hegemon, or of the wealth of technology that enriches our lives, is an interesting question. I suppose it is moot, since it is, like the Bible, front and center, and all that is holy in American society---but certainly a justice that considers stare desicis irrelevant should also have pursued this fundamental line of questioning. Regardless, overlooking stare desicis is a very hard decision to make, and you certainly don't want that in a justice. As Thomas puts it himself (and as I have noted), even when it comes to widely contentious court rulings as you have put it yourself--- Well, he lied at least 35 times. And some of those dissenting opinions are so laughable they verge on the absurd. seriously, what the hell? fine, go screw Roosevelt's bullied rulings, but 200-year old law, furnished by a-near unanimous opinion that has never been challenged in well---200 years? huh. Look, I'm all for reexamining previous Supreme Court cases, but to do it so many times in the search of whatever interpretation Justice Thomas has of the Constitution, is to place our fates in the hands of a person who is willing to upset sometimes two centuries of established law that has not been controversial in any way, in order to implement whatever happens to be the way Justice Thomas thought the Founding Fathers were thinking . In effect, originalism is an euphemism for judicial activism---it alleges that other interpretations are wrong based on the "original" Constitution---which in real terms is the interpretation of the user of the "original" Constitution---so here we are running in circles again. Short of having a time machine, you shouldn't even call the damn thing originalism.
Clarence Thomas knew that the Constitution wanted Supreme Court Justices presiding over cases of groups that gave their spouses $100,000, and the the Constitution didn't want those Supreme court Justices to ever acknowledge that money was given to their family. What a strict constitutionalist Thomas is.
Where is that in the Constitution? Also he isn't presiding over cases of groups. he is presiding over legislation (Obamacare).
He doesn't preside over anything unless a case reaches the Supreme court. The court doesn't arbitrarily pick legislation and decide if it's constitutional or not. They hear a case based on that legislation and make a decision.
Take this derail to a new thread. This is the story of Herman Cain, who's distrust of Muslims he can not explain; for something they may not have done. Put in his cabinet but not till they take a loyalty statement test. Herman Cain's Anti-Muslim Bigotry Should Be Disqualifying Presidential candidate Herman Cain has reiterated his position that any Muslim serving in his administration would be forced to take a loyalty test with this statement: "That's not discrimination. It's called trying to protect the American people. This nation is under attack constantly by people who want to kill all of us, so I'm going to take extra precaution." That's chilling logic. The last time the United States government decided that an "extra precaution" made it okay to presume the disloyalty of citizens, we imprisoned more than 100,000 completely innocent Japanese Americans. Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/06/herman-cains-anti-muslim-bigotry-should-be-disqualifying/240321/.
Herman Cain appears to disregard the constitution. <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ePEPQy3mkts" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
There's "adhering mindlessly to stare decisis" and there's actively trying to overturn relatively recent precedent because you disagree with it. Guess which one Roberts has done with his most influential decision?
I saw Professor Cemerinski the law professor with probably the leading horn book on consitutional law talking about Roberts, Scalia and the boys and "originalism". When asked to predict a decision of the Court Chemerisnski said: "You would be better off looking at the recent GOP Presidential Platform for guidance than the Federlist Papers. Nailed it.
"Originalism" reminds me of Joseph Smith reading magic golden plates and coming up with the Book of Mormon.
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Herman Cain is a *****ing joke.....I hope he loses and disappears. I'm not going to say what he reminds me off....its not pleasant.
