Clarence Thomas Delivers An Incomprehensibly Stupid Speech

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:09 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is Vapid Response number 31. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real-life attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:18 Matt: Hold up, guys. All right. Hold on. Who am I? 93 % of all communication is nonverbal. I got the bowl glasses, everybody.

0:00:28 Lydia: My gosh. My God.

0:00:28 Thomas: What?

0:00:29 Lydia: Bull. Bull is in the building.

0:00:32 Matt: They're not that good. I don't think they work on me.

0:00:34 Lydia: I don't know.

0:00:34 Thomas: Is it Halloween? What's happening?

0:00:36 Lydia: I think they act...

0:00:36 Matt: I just had to try new glasses.

0:00:38 Lydia: I don' t know. You kind of like them.

0:00:38 Thomas: They're very reflect -y. Yeah

0:00:40 Matt: Yeah, I think they're too big. I'm not

0:00:41 Lydia: Well, folks who are watching on YouTube, chime in in the comments below. Should Matt keep this look?

0:00:46 Matt: Bowl -headed enough.

0:00:47 Lydia: I don ?t know.

0:00:47 Matt: Hold on now. That was a fake out because these are actually my new glasses, is my slightly less bullish glasses. Here we go. I think these are all right. They'll do. But I can't keep the bowl glasses.

0:00:55 Lydia: Those are less bullish, issue, right?

0:00:58 Thomas: They need the nose and the mustache but other than that they look okay of

0:01:01 Matt: I'm embarrassed to say I looked up the bowl glasses and I tried them on. I got a great deal on them, but I'm sending them back. They're too big. Can't do it. I hate to admit that in public on a recording.

0:01:09 Thomas: Course referencing the lot awful movies we did available on patreon.com/law we went through the first episode of bull that is allegedly uh based on uh what's his name dr phil so so

0:01:17 Lydia: Did. Dr. Phil.

0:01:21 Matt: That was a lot of bowl. That was quite a lot. That was whole lot of bow.

0:01:23 Thomas: Not based on dr phill but uh man that was fun yeah uh that's uh that's that's um matt how are you doing other other than just busy be glasses choosing, why and Lydia, producer Lydia, how you doing, oh, you died, died?

0:01:26 Lydia: In his dreams.

0:01:35 Matt: A little disappointed about the glasses, but I'll get over it. I'm good. I'm great. Got

0:01:41 Lydia: Doing okay. I am back from the dead. For people who listen to Where There's Woke, I was the verge of death. And I should have died. Because I think that would have been better than what we are going to subject ourselves. Ourselves.

0:01:49 Thomas: If having a slightly scratchy voice, now your voice is almost gone, but yeah.

0:01:56 Lydia: It was bad. It was really bad. But it's mostly back. But yeah, I don't know. I'm excited and scared, I guess, for this episode. But I think it'll be good. I don't have bowl glasses, though.

0:02:10 Thomas: What are we going to be talking about today? The

0:02:12 Matt: Hit a major landmark last week. Clarence Thomas became the second longest serving justice. So we got to talk about Clarence Thomas. The only winner so far is William Douglas, who has another three years on him. So Clarence Thomas would have to make it to summer of 2029, which he very well might hold on just to see what happens to the election.

0:02:29 Thomas: In a way, I guess I'm rooting for that because that means he hasn't retired and then we can maybe replace him.

0:02:31 Matt: But big messy summer though. Yeah, we'll see. But yeah, but so we're going to talk about a speech that he gave last month, which it got some attention, but not enough, I don't think, because I'm going to argue to you that this speech really encapsulates his entire sort of judicial philosophy, just how he is. You can learn a lot about him, and I think there's a lot that people may not understand or know about him when you actually take him on his word, on his merits, on what he's talking about. And I'll make that case. I'm ready for it.

0:03:00 Lydia: Well, Matt also subjected himself to a book, a Clarence Thomas book.

0:03:03 Matt: I did. It's a great book.

0:03:03 Thomas: No, please tell me. Matt, we need to talk about what you do to your brain all right

0:03:09 Matt: Recommend it. Honestly, this is a great book. It's actually recommended by a listener. Corey Robin, who's a really great author and scholar, wrote a book called The Enigma of Clarence Thomas. And I'd read a couple of Clarece Thomas books already, but I had not read one that looked at him this way, which is just looking at his jurisprudence literally and just trying to figure out what's going on, like what he's actually doing. And I'll talk a little bit more about that.

0:03:28 Matt: But we'll start out with a little amuse -douce reminding us of Clarence Thomas's past, and then we'll catch up to where he's at these days.

0:03:37 Thomas: Well that's the plan we got to take our usual first break but we get to thank our patrons our amazing hall of fame patrons over patreon .com slash law make the show happen we thank them each and every week by uh giving a read of their name and they get to change it or keep it the same either way it's great thank you too I stopped eating paste because of how my butt felled for reference to where there's woke the ruth bader ginsburgler my house is a mess but I read lots of books. That's like Matt over here with the kind of crap we're putting you through.

0:04:05 Matt: That is literally me. That's my line.

0:04:08 Thomas: Griff, the tired 1L. Gary the Seagull. Matthew Cutler, autistic Twitch streamer. Venanari for America, one man, one vote. Unremarkable. Jenessa's Rambo critique, J4 Lamb.

0:04:21 Lydia: J4 lamb.

0:04:23 Thomas: J4 lamb.

0:04:24 Lydia: Like Jenessa for lamb?

0:04:25 Thomas: Yeah, it must be. So they're trying to do, yeah. So I think they want us to do Rambo. I don't know. But Rambo is not really a law movie. But I would love to get Jenessa in on a lamb for sure.

0:04:26 Lydia: Like they're pitching? Okay. Yeah, just watch it for fun. Yeah?

0:04:34 Matt: He's a law unto himself.

0:04:36 Thomas: Amina. Yeah, we could do Judge. Well, we did do Judge Dredd back in the day. I am the law.

0:04:41 Matt: I missed out.

0:04:43 Thomas: Don Shredaway, Mother of Heritage. Mike Lapinsky, A Dog, A Panic, In a Pagoda. Oh, I love that one.

0:04:48 Lydia: Cute.

0:04:49 Matt: Very good.

0:04:49 Thomas: In a pagoda. That's fantastic.

0:04:51 Lydia: I can like visualize it too. I have a lot of appreciation for that really it's

0:04:54 Thomas: I can't visualize a pagoda. What is that? What is it? I don't remember what it is.

0:04:58 Lydia: An architectural to building I

0:05:00 Thomas: Yeah okay what kind I'm I trust that you know what it is I don't remember what it is okay cyanitis the quick so explain to me off air I guess the quaker oats guy great preponderance of the evidence all -time classic mr chief justice and may it please the court apprentice of adventure and probably a real person thank you so much hall of famers you're the best and we'll take a quick break then we'll get into it about douches um thomas is a douche yeah

0:05:02 Lydia: Don't know yeah

0:05:02 Matt: Tall, narrow, lots of tears. Yeah. And every man is going to be asking a question of Professor Anita Hill is a douche in this clip. That's the theme here. Anita Hill herself, of course, commendable and has to be talked about before we talked about Clarence Thomas. So that is today's introduction. This is a series of clips Oops, it was put together actually by Vice, so I appreciate that. We're not going to watch all of it, but just a couple of minutes here, some worst ofs, the questioning of Anita Hill in the confirmation hearing. So let's just go ahead and

0:05:55 Clip: Forward with these things I've got to determine what your motivation might be are you a scorned woman do you have a militant attitude relative to the area of civil rights do you have a martyr complex the issue of fantasy has arisen are you interested in writing a book It is appropriate to ask, Professor Hill,

0:06:04 Thomas: What what oh

0:06:20 Matt: Show Biden.

0:06:23 Thomas: Before he grew all his hair back he

0:06:26 Matt: Yeah, there's some choice Biden moments in this one.

0:06:29 Lydia: Biden

0:06:27 Thomas: Looks older then than he does now that's the miracle of modern science it's oh boy how

0:06:33 Matt: But he's younger than that now.

0:06:34 Lydia: Hair plugs snaps

0:06:36 Clip: Anything any member wishes to ask her to plumb the depths of her credibility. You are not now drawing a conclusion that Judge Thomas sexually harassed you. Yes, I am drawing that conclusion. Well, then I don't understand. Pardon me? Then I don't understand. Stand.

0:06:57 Thomas: Do you not understand well

0:06:58 Clip: Do you have anything to gain by coming here? Has anybody promised you anything by coming forth with this story now? The witness did not say anything to the FBI about the described

0:07:10 Thomas: It's unfair to include that wasn't that democrat trying to like let her say that she wasn't gaining anything by but whatever it's all right oh

0:07:17 Clip: Size of his penis, the description of the movie Long Dong Silver, about the pubic hair in the coke. I did think that Senator Specter pointed out some inconsistencies. All we've heard for 103 days is about a most remarkable man and they scoured his every shred of life and nobody but you has come forward if what you say this man said to you occurred why in god's name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life that's a very good question and I'm sure that I can't not answer that to your satisfaction that is one of the things that I have tried to do today I have suggested that I was afraid of retaliation I was afraid of damage to my professional life and I believe you do you have to understand that this response and that and that's one of things that I have come to understand about harassment this response this kind of response is not a typical and I can't explain it takes it takes an expert in psychology to explain how that can happen but it can happen because it happened to me well I just it just seems that so incredible to me that is that is a most contradictory and puzzling thing for me I do not know how judge thomas defends himself I do apologize to the women of America if they got the wrong impression about how seriously I take the issue of sexual harassment. I must tell you, I must tell everyone else, I take sexual harassment seriously. To

0:08:05 Thomas: Where

0:09:09 Matt: Okay, there Anita Hill, of course, told her story and with no reason to doubt it was true. It remains true as of the second longest serving justice's continuing term.

0:09:18 Thomas: Love the idea that's like you know there's some inconsistencies in your story about the pubic hair on the coke can or whatever you're like really you mean someone made that up and when they made it up though they made it a little inconsistent like what what

0:09:36 Matt: Just for fun. Just a fun story to tell people. A fantasy.

0:09:39 Thomas: It's just like

0:09:40 Lydia: Like if you make it up you would have the the details all like perfected because it's imagination it's from your mind yeah violent

0:09:44 Thomas: And it would be so much worse like people don't like if you're actually going to make something up it'd just be way more like cut and dry you know it's yeah it's so this law professor I always forget like Like she's a law professor and they're questioning her. Like that is so, everything about that is the worst thing ever. Like every single part of it, the racism, the sexism.

0:09:53 Lydia: Potentially like like something that's more salacious yeah yeah what Well, yeah. But and then this idea of like, you know, this fear of retaliation, the professional consequences, like by someone who has now been nominated to one of nine positions in the entire country as a Supreme Court justice. Like, yes, that's going to potentially have professional consequences if this person holds that much power now. You know, like he's been in positions of power this entire time in order to be like ,you on the shoulder for something like that. So just crazy right

0:10:36 Matt: And of course you know people remember Christine Blasey Ford going through all of this not that long ago with Brent Kavanaugh just the same cycle repeating. Thought that we should get that voice in here before we get started on the main event. So the main event is a speech that was given at University of Texas last month in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, or at least that was on paper what we were talking about. That's not really what he was talking about at all. If anything, the parts where he's talking about how we need to limit the king are pretty confusing coming from the guy that not only signed on to the immunity decision, but signed on to a much harsher concurrence in the immunity position about how the president should never ever be prosecuted. And the case should be dropped in Florida, basically, at the time. So let's cue this up, this speech. And I want to start with a fun little taste. There's just a funny thing that I want you to hear before we do anything else. It's entire speech is kind of a slog. There is a lot in here, and I've picked out some judicious excerpts we're going to talk about that I think really help to explain Clarence Thomas's judicial philosophy. This little clip that I'm going to show you has nothing to do with his judicial philosophy, I just think it's hilarious.

0:11:38 Clip: Of the passengers of Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9 -11.

0:11:45 Lydia: Shanksville.

0:11:46 Matt: Dj run that back he

0:11:43 Thomas: Shanksville did he say skanks ville skanks

0:11:49 Matt: Absolutely 300 says ganksville pennsylvania

0:11:48 Lydia: Skanksvile. That's not the name of the town.

0:11:52 Clip: That crashed in Shanksville. I

0:11:54 Matt: I am very sorry to be laughing at this he's

0:11:56 Lydia: Skanksville.

0:11:58 Thomas: Vill he for sure said skanks phil there's no ifs ands or buts god someone won't someone think of the skanks you know how many skanks died on that day that fateful day okay never

0:12:07 Lydia: My gosh. Wow.

0:12:01 Matt: Got skanks on the brain yeah um so corinne stama sure is all right I will say tragedy plus time has equaled comedy in this case tragedy plus skanks equals comedy uh

0:12:16 Thomas: Forget never forget skanksville

0:12:18 Lydia: Never forget. Skanksvile. Shankvile, yeah,

0:12:24 Thomas: Skanksvill What's the actual thing he's trying to say? Shanksville. Yeah that's pretty different I how do you make make that mistake. Skanksville.

0:12:30 Matt: I listened to that over and over again. Somebody needs to do a remix of that because it's so good. Just saying Skanksville.

0:12:36 Thomas: That's, yeah, that's fun. All

0:12:37 Lydia: Skanksville.

0:12:38 Matt: That's like a Fatboy Slim classic beat or something you could put under that. But anyway.

0:12:42 Thomas: Good time.

0:12:43 Matt: All right. So let's take it back to the actual speech.

0:12:45 Thomas: Pour one out for Skanksvile.

0:12:46 Matt: Now, again, on paper, this is a speech about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, but he's been talking a lot about a lot of other things. Now just a reminder that Clarence Thomas has a very unusual life, a very unusual background, and I'm usually very careful to criticize him because, first of all, none of us, we've got three white people sitting here, can possibly understand this man's life. But I'm going to say that most black people in America can't understand Clarence Thomas' life. He grew up speaking Goa, a dialect that was passed down from enslaved people. He grewup in Pinpoint, Georgia, an incredibly community. He had a very, very strange life. He wasn't radicalized. I should say, he was a left -wing radical, basically. He was a Black Panther. He was a hardcore Afro.

0:13:29 Matt: He believed that Black men should not date white women.

0:13:28 Thomas: The hell?

0:13:33 Matt: He would actually yell at Black men for walking around with white women on campus. He was pretty into...

0:13:36 Lydia: What happened?

0:13:38 Matt: Well, this is fascinating.

0:13:39 Thomas: Is there a Freaky Friday situation?

0:13:41 Lydia: Yeah.

0:13:42 Matt: I knew some of this about Koenstam before. The Slow Burn podcast did a really good series on him that goes back and talks to some of the people who knew him. But I've read a couple of books about him.

0:13:51 Thomas: Did he get get outed or whatever?

0:13:55 Lydia: Yeah.

0:13:55 Thomas: I think that's what it, he's just a white guy in the, I think from get out, you know, that we need somebody to stir the tea again and get him out out of there hmm

0:14:00 Lydia: Jenny Thomas's family.

0:14:04 Matt: Me blow your mind. Corey Robin, who again, I respect Corey Robin already. I thought he was a good writer to begin with, and I've heard him interviewed before. I think he's a smart guy. I'd love to talk to him. His theory for the enigma of Clarence Thomas throughout the book, his working theory, is that ClarenCE Thomas is a conservative Black nationalist, that that's where he's coming from, that he is so cynical about race in America at this point. Now, of course, part of his backstory is that he decided after experiencing open racism in the South and just the worst kinds of racism you can imagine during the Jim Crow era, we kind of from the tale of that, like experiencing what that was like, he was radicalized into being a conservative when he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts to attend Holy Cross. And he experienced Northern racism, Massachusetts racism, which is the extremely refined kind where white liberals are nice to you and shake your hand and then, yeah.

0:14:46 Thomas: So let me get this straight so you you experience more racism and then you're like you know I like this I'm gonna start helping them but

0:14:58 Matt: Well, he decided that rather than deal with liberals who are going to pretend to like him and talk shit about him behind his back, that he would just deal with racists who would just shake his hand and give him a job. Because of course, this is the 80s.

0:15:07 Thomas: They're still talking shit behind his back he just doesn't know

0:15:11 Matt: Everybody is. And one of the things I'm going to tell you about this speech, one ofthe reasons I picked this to do today is because Quint -Samos is talking to an audience that doesn't exist. He wants this audience to exist .He believes out there that if he just keeps doing this thing, that eventually there's going to be an audience of Black conservatives, Black conservative intellectual libertarian nationalists who agree with his position.

0:15:30 Lydia: Just a bunch of him.

0:15:31 Matt: And yeah, a bunch of him. And there's like three of him, maybe. I don't know. I've never met another one of him I've heard of another one of them.

0:15:37 Thomas: I I don't even know what the hell he I'm still not clear on what he believes

0:15:41 Matt: Honestly, I'm not joking. He's the most interesting public figure in the United States right now. I really think he is. But I'm saying that in

0:15:44 Thomas: Matt something's happened to your brain get

0:15:50 Matt: The same way that COVID is a super interesting virus, right? It's just

0:15:51 Lydia: It was the bowl glasses they've warped matt's brain

0:15:54 Thomas: Right out of here you're into Skanksville. You just take the first train to Skanksville. I don't know what you're talking.

0:15:59 Matt: Tell me, is there a more interesting public figure in America than Cohen? I mean, honestly, really? No, he's super interesting. I don't think that Stephen Miller is interesting. I think he's just a bully, somebody like that, right? But Trump's not interesting. Trump just sucks.

0:16:03 Thomas: Anyone. I, I don'T know. Stephen Miller is not interesting. I agree with that.

0:16:12 Lydia: But you just like really want to figure out clearance thomas like you feel like you can figure him out yeah hmm interesting

0:16:15 Matt: But he is an enigma, like the book said. Right, right. And he's got such an interesting backstory and so many interesting things going on. I do not agree with him almost most entirely. I think that he's off base. But it's hard for me to criticize. Again, I can criticize the outcomes. I can criticise his philosophy.

0:16:17 Thomas: I think I

0:16:23 Lydia: He's a dangerous person yeah

0:16:28 Thomas: Can criticize him.

0:16:29 Matt: But I can't criticize how he turned out. Because one of my favourite life questions with anybody is, how did you get that way?

0:16:35 Lydia: Yeah.

0:16:33 Thomas: I can. Don't turn out to be a sexual harasser of women. I don't actually think there's any excuse for that.

0:16:38 Matt: Well, let's start there, certainly.

0:16:40 Thomas: Yeah, man.

0:16:42 Matt: But thinking about his political philosophy, which is basically that Black people in America do better if there's more adversity. So he's creating adversity from his position. This is Corey Robbins' theory, basically, is that But he doesn't believe in the electoral system. He believes that there should be more police because when he was growing up, everything was nicer when police were mean to black people.

0:17:00 Matt: I'm not even exaggerating, really. And that anything that we do that resembles a handout or being nice to black people or liberals like trying to shake their hands and not respect them, basically, and including affirmative action, which, of course, he also killed himself and benefited from. He knows that full well. Rosa Parks called him out on that in the 90s, said specifically. It's pretty bad when Rosa Parks is calling you out. It's kind of like the Pope calling out JD Vance.

0:17:23 Matt: But this is a man who has stuck with this weird philosophy. And Corey Robin, what I really like about the book is he's saying, look, there is a little bit of implicit racism in just saying that this guy doesn't make any sense and he's just there because of affirmative action and he's stupid. I mean, I don't actually think he's stupid. But I don't think he's the smartest person to ever sit on the bench.

0:17:19 Lydia: I know. Yeah, truly. I

0:17:42 Matt: But yes, exactly.

0:17:43 Lydia: Think he has a lot of unresolved trauma that he needs

0:17:42 Thomas: Or something. Then it

0:17:47 Lydia: To he should be in therapy and working that out. And it should not be our problem.

0:17:50 Thomas: Should not be our problem. It should not be the United States, the people of the United States' problem.

0:17:56 Matt: And he knows full well that the reason he's on the court is because there were like three conservative black judges in all of America when Reagan and Bush were trying to figure this out.

0:17:56 Lydia: I agree. D .E .I.

0:18:05 Matt: Yeah, right. And then he's really aware and he doesn't like it either. But that's how he did it. He was also, his first major job was the head of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which is something else he didn't really believe in. That was just like straight up working on discrimination claims. So we're going to get a cameo here from familiar friends of Clarence Thomas. I just think this is a really funny shout out. This seems almost like a like a Troll.

0:18:08 Lydia: At least

0:18:24 Thomas: Flags? Oh, no.

0:18:26 Matt: Yeah, no, that's the other guy.

0:18:28 Lydia: That's Alita.

0:18:28 Thomas: You know, they need to iron their flags. They're a little wrinkly.

0:18:31 Matt: Wrinkly.

0:18:31 Thomas: They got a little wrinkley in the laundry there.

0:18:31 Matt: It's got to be in the code there. You can't just have wrinkly flags. Yeah so you'll hear a familiar name here in a moment.

0:18:38 Clip: Seem to always enjoy my travels to this amazing state. My wife Virginia and I have many wonderful friends and acquaintances here and it is so special to have our dear Dear friends, Harlan and Kathy Crowe join us today.

0:18:57 Matt: There it is!

0:18:58 Clip: One of the features of this state, despite

0:18:58 Matt: Just shout out to my billionaire sponsor.

0:18:59 Lydia: My benefactor, the

0:19:01 Matt: The guy who pays for my life. Harlan Crow.

0:19:02 Thomas: My dear friends he's almost choking up my my dear billionaire friend without whom

0:19:06 Lydia: My sugar daddy, my My sugar daddy who's here right now.

0:19:10 Thomas: Who always has a spare seat on the jet for me that wasn't going to be used if I didn't go on it was was that him I think that was him I can't remember yeah there's there's been more than one like like private jet justice I think

0:19:18 Matt: That was him. That's... I... Yeah, right. Oh wait, that might have actually been Scalia. Yes, that was Scalia.

0:19:27 Lydia: No, no, no. I think it was Clarence Thomas.

0:19:27 Thomas: It wasn't scalia no this is recent but I I was almost thinking it was alito or somebody yeah what was yeah

0:19:31 Matt: If I didn't use the seed, because in his recusal explanation of the hunting trip, he explained why he took it. And again, that might've been Thomas too, whatever. They both did it, but Thomas has done it like nobody else has ever done it. Nobody has taken money the way that this man has. And to put it in your speech, in the text of your speech to call this man out. If ProPublic had run a series of articles about how I had been taking a bunch of money from this man, I simply would never mention him in public again, but that's just me, I guess. Us. I don't know.

0:19:57 Thomas: He's going the other way which is he's trying to make it out to be like a genuine friendship you know it's a genuine he's just a dear billionaire friend that

0:20:05 Lydia: Rather than a series of like Venmo gift transactions.

0:20:06 Matt: Just leaning in.

0:20:06 Thomas: Only happened to become friends after he's a justice justice.

0:20:12 Lydia: Ridiculous.

0:20:13 Thomas: Oh, boy.

0:20:13 Matt: Well, okay. I think now that we've set up the speech, we've had our amused issue, we can take a quick break and come back and get to the meat of it.

0:20:18 Thomas: All it's true because we got some patrons to thank. We've got to take a break and we've got to thank more patrons. And I say got to. We have the privilege of thanking some more patrons Thank you to Nick Fish, Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, attorney at law. A negative phenomenon submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society. I call this story. Oh, OK. I don't know what that is.

0:20:24 Lydia: It's the best.

0:20:38 Thomas: I guess we'll find out. You got to fight for your right to To Ex Parte, Jay Sank, David Souther, Vehicular Man's Laughter, giving shout outs to all my Wokies, especially Seriously, go subscribe to WTW. Thank you. Where there's woke. Appreciate it, Vehacular Man's Lofter. Vehicular man's laughter. I was doing like the, yeah, no, I was dealing, what's that weird accent where they say like rather and lofter? It's like, there's a, there're a, east coast kind of accent where the do that.

0:20:38 Lydia: We'll never know. Aw. He's going to take back his endorsement. Get it right. Don't know.

0:21:07 Matt: Millionaire accent.

0:21:07 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:07 Lydia: Worcester.

0:21:07 Thomas: Yeah. Tucker Carlson says rather, you know, like it's a, it's a specific, I can't remember what it is. Uh, I just apparently was possessed by Tucker Carlston for a second. Lydia Smith for ruler of the universe.

0:21:11 Lydia: Interesting that's where you're from yeah you

0:21:19 Thomas: So somebody, somebody is like just giving you, they, they wow. You, you just, you

0:21:23 Lydia: Mean somebody the best the best patron of all time is what you're talking about

0:21:26 Thomas: Just, uh, quickly ascended. You went from no position to ruler of the university. So, so, so I'm going to go with ruler of the universe overnight. John Roberts choking on 4 .3 inches of coal today's episode is brought to you by the letter something cavalry thomas freeman cajun killer fraud fish he hates everything chris simpson missing knowledge fight uh akila and mark schultz thank you so much to our second uh there all right we'll take a quick break and then more of this asshole not talking about matt I'm talking about that it's more of me I'm

0:21:31 Lydia: I rule everything

0:22:00 Matt: All Right. Well, me too. Too next

0:22:02 Thomas: Talking about me all right what'll this asshole come up with next matt oh

0:22:09 Matt: He has a very interesting explanation for where civil rights for black people in america came from um if you can make sense of this it's an interesting perspective like so many perspectives I don't know I can't say I understand it but let's give it a try yep

0:22:20 Clip: The multiplicity of laws and customs that wreaked a bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived and who had very little or no formal education that in God's eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal. Equal. This was also the case with my nuns, most of whom were Irish immigrants. At home, at school, and at church, we were taught that we are inherently equal, that equality came from God, and that it could not be diminished by man. We were made in the image and likeness of God. That proposition was not debatable and was beyond the power of man to alter.

0:23:18 Clip: Others with power and animus could treat us as unequal, but they lacked the divine power to make us so. Somehow, without formal education, the older people knew that these God -given or or natural rights preceded and transcended governmental power or authority.

0:23:30 Thomas: Fine sure what somehow without education they knew it a thing you can just say like okay that's easy that's like the most basic tenet of religious bullshit I don't know man what that's not you don't go to school for that what do you mean without education he's

0:24:00 Matt: I this again we're going to play a little bit more, but yeah, he's still building.

0:24:02 Thomas: Still building right yeah okay

0:24:04 Clip: When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination, and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment, it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God. Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from architects of segregation and discrimination. Men were not angels. They were subject to the constraints of antecedent rights, and we were not subject to those men even as we were subjected to their whims. We knew that life, liberty, and property were sacrosanct. Those truths were self -evident to

0:24:27 Thomas: All right yeah man fine okay what

0:25:06 Clip: The adults in our lives and were taught to us as indelible, undeniable truths. Those around us would endure or could endure the insults of segregation with dignity because they knew that in God's eyes, they were equal. All too often, tens

0:25:28 Matt: That's our stopping point. So what

0:25:30 Thomas: Man okay well

0:25:31 Lydia: It's just so silly.

0:25:32 Matt: Is he saying?

0:25:33 Lydia: Like, yeah, at

0:25:33 Matt: What is he saying here?

0:25:34 Thomas: I get what he's just saying the same thing over and over I don't the part I don'T get is matt where you're saying he's saying something like if I just saw this on my own and be like okay he's JUST SAYING GOD over and OVER and that's where the rights come from so

0:25:43 Matt: There's something very important here. So he's talking about natural

0:25:45 Lydia: A public college, by the way, but I'm just, you know.

0:25:49 Matt: Rights, which is going to be a big theme of this. He's going to be setting up in this the contrast between natural rights and what he calls progressivism. Now, his definition of progressivist, as we'll see, doesn't really exist. That's part of this problem. I told you he's speaking to an audience that doesn't exist. He's also talking about people who don't exist and enemies that don't exists, which is very confusing also.

0:26:08 Matt: I don't understand what he's talking about to be me or you or anybody.

0:26:07 Thomas: Do we exist I don't know what does exist well I'm

0:26:15 Matt: I want

0:26:15 Thomas: Just waiting until he gets to the part of the thing what I'm saying is that he's still in the you you know the premises I don'T know what he's where he's getting at until he uses them to try to make an argument well

0:26:25 Matt: Play this because the premise here is that we endured segregation knowing that we had natural God -given rights. It doesn't matter if you have natural God -given rights if the government has not recognized your equality or recognized that you have any rights. Right. So now he's going to explain about progressivism, and this is where it really starts to get off the rails.

0:26:42 Clip: Madison described it, sown in the nature of man, government had to be limited. For as Madison also said, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary, but alas, men are not angels. The slaveholders used the power of government to deny the fundamental rights, natural rights, of the slaves. The segregationists used the state to oppress the freed men and women, including my ancestors. As we meet today, it is unclear whether these principles will endure. At the beginning of the 20th century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream. The proponents of this new set first principles, most prominent among them, the 28th president of our country, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism. Since Wilson's presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration. Because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.

0:28:24 Matt: All right, stop a second. So this is the premise.

0:28:26 Lydia: He had to stop too so.

0:28:28 Matt: This is the promise is that progressivism is the greatest evil of our time. Now, of course, he is calling out three of the justices at least, right? Who are progressive, no question. But he's also talking about capital P progressivist from the early 20th century, which is completely different. If you remember, capital P progressivism supported eugenics. It actually supported a lot of immigration in a strange kind of way, but it also believed that there were racial categories and the bad kind of...

0:28:52 Thomas: I don't know this I don't remember this because I don't

0:28:55 Matt: Well, this is a good time to talk about it. The reason I want to talk About it is because he's getting history wrong, but he's also in a really weird way getting it right. So what he's talking about here is he's... Remember what these people are actually most concerned about. And what they really want to end is regulation. So we have to talk about a reason that we need to end the administrative state, that we have to kill Chevron the way they hope to do, the way that we have to make sure that corporations get to do whatever they want. And the big accomplishment of progressivism was labor, was labor organizing and union and not having a seven -day work week, not letting 12 -year -olds work in factories. Those are all things that progressives did. And it didn't start with Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson had all kinds of problems. Nobody I know of, at least, is championing Woodrow Wilson

0:28:55 Thomas: Know that I ever knew it yeah yeah teacher matt yeah

0:28:57 Lydia: Teach us, Matt. Right.

0:29:39 Matt: As a progressive.

0:29:39 Thomas: That's such a weird thing we just talk about like FDR and the New Deal politics kind of thing

0:29:44 Matt: But he wants to put out Wilson as the ultimate progressive because Wilson was a racist, because Wilson did suck in all kinds ways. And Wilson also cracked down on free speech like nobody else ever did in American history during World War I, like some of the most repressive stuff completely forgotten now. But Wilson was not a good guy. And he wants to put Wilson front and center for a reason. But the contrast he's making here is a false one between progressives who are legal positivists who need to pass rules or else they don't exist. He's saying basically that there's natural law, which everybody knows is the kind that only, you know, that Christians can see, right? That basically the God -given rights, right. And so, but these positivists, you know they just want to make it all up and they want to say that the only rights that exist are the ones you get. Whereas, you Know, these days, at least you hear progressives talking about the natural human right to housing, to education, to healthcare, right, these are things that are not yet, unfortunately, in the law, but things we all believe should exist.

0:30:34 Thomas: Well but even if you want to say yeah it's the rights from God are the ones that really matter okay what are they and how do you know them like it's still going to be some asshole making it up that doesn't

0:30:42 Matt: And you're still going to have to use the Mormon scrying stones to figure out your version of what natural rights are, right? To do the Joseph Smith thing.

0:30:45 Lydia: From man.

0:30:50 Thomas: And it'll be involve humans doing it so that's not it's it's worthless. Like it's, it's fine. Like in a deistic way, I get that so much of our country's history and a lot of people need to say, well, there is a God holding it all down at the end of the day. That's the whole idea. We need that. Otherwise we can't do anything else. And sort of like, okay, fine. If you need that, sure.

0:31:10 Thomas: You start there, but then like the next step is always, okay, so what does that mean? And all of that has to be either you're making it up or you're saying it comes from the Bible. Either way, it's all human interpretation and it's not any better than someone, some other kind of interpretation. It's not, it'S not any better just by default is what I'm saying.

0:31:15 Matt: Right,

0:31:32 Thomas: Like it's all going to come down to like how it works, how, outcomes, like whether or not it actually has good outcomes. It doesn't do anything for us.

0:31:39 Matt: And discretion because people like Thomas and Alito and Scalia have always been against the idea of substantive due process, the idea that we can sort of make balancing tests and figure out how to interpret the law. And he would prefer to just rely on natural rights, but it's all the same thing. It's all coming down to what the judge thinks is the law.

0:31:54 Thomas: What are the natural rights?

0:31:55 Matt: Right. Any more than what is substantive due process, right? I mean, it's just that these are not things, these are outside of the constitution. They're outside of The Declaration of Independence. Obviously, The Declaration Of Independence starts with the statement, right, that all men are created equal and, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. But he's also quoting slaveholders and he's talking about a constitution written by them.

0:32:10 Lydia: It's the application of those things in law that matters. And if it's not being upheld in law, then we have a duty to fix that. And I don't know. It is just very

0:32:22 Matt: And if you're going to draw from natural rights that don't exist in the constitution, then what are we doing? Right? What are we doing any of this? Because he's going to go on about the living constitution and how that's the worst way to interpret it. But what he wants is basically like a ghost constitution, I guess, like a Holy Spirit constitution that he can draw from anytime. And this contrast, though, it's very strange to me, but it does track with everything that he believes. Let's listen to a little bit more about it. His theory is about the history of progressivism, which I'm going to tell you, this next paragraph, completely ahistorical. What he's saying is not correct. This is very strange.

0:32:23 Lydia: Confusing. Right? Mm -mm.

0:32:52 Matt: Yeah, yeah, from there.

0:32:52 Thomas: Continuing from that point

0:32:54 Clip: Progressivism was not native to America. America, Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck's Germany, whose state -centric society they admired. Progressives like Wilson argued that America

0:32:59 Thomas: It where did we get the founding principles of our country was that from here were they born here matt or did we take them from you know lock and some other people like we took you know stuff that wasn't here why does it yeah the exact a lot of french philosophy yeah like it needs to be homegrown to be or like that matters sorry

0:33:24 Lydia: Philosophers from other countries. Yeah? Yeah.

0:33:21 Matt: And the French, Greeks, yeah. And Otto von Bismarck, he was a monarchist. He was not a progressive, but he did invent basically the idea of the administrative state, of the idea of this state providing benefits and sort of systematizing things in a way that he hates. So that's really what he's talking about, the state -centric society. This is going to go places, I'm sure you can imagine.

0:33:49 Thomas: I just wanted to make that comment.

0:33:50 Clip: Needed to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power, nearly perfect, perfected. He acknowledged that it was a foreign science speaking very little of the language of English or American principle, which offers none but what are to our minds alien ideas. He thus described America still stuck with its original system of government as quote, slow to see the superiority of the European system. Progressivism was the first mainstream American political movement with the possible exception of the pro -slavery reactionaries on the eve of the Civil War to openly oppose the principles of the Declaration. Progressives strove to undo the Declaration's commitment commitment to equality and natural rights, both of which they denied were self -evident. To Wilson, the unalienable rights of the individual were, quote, a lot of nonsense. Wilson redefined liberty not as a natural right attendant and ascendant to the government, but as, quote, the right of those who are governed to adjust government to their own needs and interests. In other words, liberty no longer preceded the government as a gift from God, but was to be enjoyed at the grace of the government. The government, as Wilson reconceived it, would be, quote beneficent and indispensable.

0:34:55 Thomas: There's no way that's true.

0:35:49 Clip: Progressives, such as John Dewey, attacked the framers for believing that their ideas were immutable truth, good for all times and places, when instead they were, according to him, historically conditioned and relevant only in their own time.

0:36:10 Clip: Now Dewe and the progressives argued those ideas are to be displaced. Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government. It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.

0:36:45 Matt: So again, just go back to what he's talking about at the beginning when he's talking about how Black Americans under segregation, under Jim Crow, understood the whole time that they had natural rights, they just weren't getting them, and that the government couldn't give them rights, even though it took an enormous amount of fight and death and torture and people going to jail for them to get those rights. And it was a progressive movement, the civil rights movement that gave those rights, Even though we all understand that if people inherently have those rights, they don't matter if the government isn't honoring them. And this just makes me a little crazy.

0:37:17 Thomas: It's just like it's stupid word game.

0:37:18 Matt: It's sad. It is sad, honestly. I just...

0:37:21 Thomas: Like I just want to make sure I'm getting where he's going with so is so is your contention that what he thinks and the reason behind his whole deregulation stripping all everything is that because our rights come come from God or whatever. We don't need no stinking government man telling us what our rights are. So therefore, like broadly speaking, why I have a law that says like, Hey, don't violate someone's rights, but you don't eat it because our rights come from God.

0:37:52 Matt: Yeah. And the law needs to stop interfering with social interactions.

0:37:54 Lydia: And, and our, well, and it's, it's stupid. Cause like, if he's saying like, these are rights guaranteed to us by God, they in practice haven't been so, and, and he recognizes that when he says that, you know, that, that if angels were in control of the government, we wouldn't need a government, right? Like, but men are no angels. Like you, You recognize that, but you can't also recognize this other piece?

0:38:18 Thomas: Yeah like, so wait, what, what if, what if yeah if the men need the checks and balances and whatever in government it's a good point it's like well that's also what like you could just rephrase what these laws are that he's talking about and it's fine there's I don't I also just do not believe that there's a bunch of people who are like we need to we needto get rid of this declaration of independence and replace where all the stuff that's stupid also even if you did that what would it change like it wouldn't actually change anything like if you no yeah that and if and if we all decided tomorrow hey you know the whole like inalienable is there any of that in the constitution does it talk about any of that I can't remember or is that just the declaration of independence

0:38:19 Matt: It's so strange.

0:38:28 Lydia: That's what the government is then, so no.

0:38:41 Matt: No. Yeah, no. It isn't a legal document.

0:38:49 Lydia: Mm -hmm.

0:39:01 Thomas: I they confuse them do they say like a creator and all that crap do they yeah exactly so I'm saying if that's not in the constitution or I can'T remember if any of it's in the Constitution but even if it were or if it's in the Declaration of Independence, either way, you could just replace our creator with like Steve.

0:39:02 Matt: I mean, the First Amendment, Second Amendment, right? They had to add the Bill of Rights. No, Yeah.

0:39:22 Thomas: What does it change?

0:39:23 Matt: Right.

0:39:23 Thomas: It doesn't change anything. You just written a document that's like very nice. It's like, we all know that Steve gave us our rights. Like we all know we've been granted by Steve our rights anyway. Here's a bunch of other stuff that like we're on the premise of that. It doesn'T matter. There's no point. That that interacts with real life at all, other than we all just decide to say that's our reason why we're doing this. You know what I mean?

0:39:42 Matt: And all these people who

0:39:49 Lydia: It's the founding principle, right?

0:39:49 Matt: Are trying to pass laws for more rights are, yeah.

0:39:51 Lydia: But it's nothing beyond that.

0:39:53 Matt: Well, you're dishonoring Steve by passing more laws, really. How dare you?

0:39:57 Thomas: Like, There's not a place where reality, that checks in with reality. It doesn't matter. It's so weird. What a weird guy.

0:40:04 Matt: And the problem, one of the many problems with God's law of natural laws, it's not self -enforcing. Like God actually turns out it's going to strike you down if you have slaves. It turns out lots of people were able to do it, even though that's obviously in violation of what we are supposed to to believe is God's law, I guess. Although, well, God loves slaves, right?

0:40:18 Thomas: No. God loves slavery. That's actually not true.

0:40:20 Matt: That's true. That's right. Well, according to him, apparently natural rights are incompatible with slavery, but

0:40:20 Thomas: Was super big fan of slavery, especially. Yeah.

0:40:18 Lydia: And zero consequences. Well, he doesn't like adultery, and that's happened a lot.

0:40:26 Thomas: Isn't that weird that all of our stuff comes from God and yet you can't look at the Bible to get what it is. Like the Bible tells you a whole bunch of different stuff that's bad. And that's so weird.

0:40:27 Matt: That's true, that's truth. Yeah, it's a real intelligence test, I think. I

0:40:37 Thomas: It's really hard.

0:40:37 Matt: Guess, figure it out for yourself.

0:40:39 Thomas: Yeah, man.

0:40:40 Matt: Well okay, we gotta see how this finishes out,

0:40:41 Clip: Will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people. Before he entered politics, Wilson would describe the American people as, quote, selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn, and foolish. He lamented that we do too much by vote and too little by expert rule. He proposed that the people be ruled by administrators who use them as tools. He once again aspired to be like Germany, where the people, he said admiringly, were docile and acquiescent.

0:40:54 Lydia: Clarence.

0:40:55 Thomas: What's your your fixation on Wilson? I don't think you like the American people.

0:40:57 Matt: It's so weird. Yeah.

0:41:10 Thomas: Well, sorry.

0:41:26 Matt: All right, bring it home, Clarence. Here we go. And

0:41:27 Clip: The century of progressivism did not go well. The European system that Wilson and the progressives scolded Americans for not adopting, which he called nearly perfect, led to the governments that caused the most awful century that the world has ever seen. Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our Declaration are based.

0:42:02 Thomas: So because we want to have like scientists be in charge of like science policy, that's, that's what gives you Hitler. Yeah. Hitler.

0:42:10 Matt: The FTC.

0:42:09 Lydia: Hitler. Then Hitler.

0:42:11 Thomas: Damn it. We need to have, yeah, we need to Have your average American be in charge. Otherwise you get Hitler, you get stolen right away. The minute you say, Hey, hey, what if we delegated some of the power in this situation, you know, to like somebody who knows about stuff?

0:42:11 Matt: Don't forget the Federal Trade Commission. The real enemy. Yes. Yeah. Nope.

0:42:28 Thomas: Can't do it. Stalin, damn it. We did it again. Another genocide. Shit. We're going to run out of people.

0:42:28 Matt: That's Stalin. You're doing Stalin. Notice the

0:42:34 Thomas: I keep just accidentally genociding.

0:42:35 Matt: Phrasing of he's like, well, the rise of progressivism was intertwined with the rise of these governments. It's such a weird way to say that. It sort of happened around the same time. I don't think people generally think of Adolf Hitler as progressive. I could be wrong, but but I'm not a historian for

0:42:48 Thomas: He's also talking about, he tries to invoke Germany at that time to say that like, therefore Hitler, but it's like, wasn't as though, you Know, I'm not super amazing in history, but when's the Woodrow wilson again what is it like the fucking 20s or something what is that well yeah so like it's not like hitler inherited that model of german government kept it and was like this is yeah yeah okay let's do let's du genocide this is great let's have a holocaust I'm not changing a thing this government is exactly what I need to

0:43:03 Matt: World War I. So, yeah.

0:43:04 Lydia: Late teens, early 20s. Notably he had to change quite a few things right because he had to have all the lawyers working

0:43:22 Thomas: He got rid of all of it he completely Completely, as Matt's covered many times and as everybody knows, he just got rid of everything. Like he just took control of all of it. This has nothing. It's super weird to critique the to say that whatever Otto von Bismarck was doing is responsible for Hitler. That's not true. Like, yeah, yeah.

0:43:43 Matt: Incredible. And one thing that Hitler loved was executive power and consolidating everything and removing it from the legislature and putting it all in the executive power, which is what Clarence Thomas is paving the way for Trump to do very happily.

0:43:53 Thomas: Yeah. Who was, who was Hitler's like scientific experts that were like in charge of like, you and science and the environment. Like who was, name one of the Nazis that was like, well, he was, that guy was just like really good at meteorology and he was just in charge. No, it's just like crony bullshit. Whereas loyalty and it's the same stuff we see with Trump. Like it, it's not at all what he's talking about.

0:44:10 Matt: I mean, yeah,

0:44:16 Lydia: Men

0:44:18 Matt: The meteorologists were not tried at Nuremberg, actually. So those weren't the ones.

0:44:23 Thomas: Right. Well, we've got to take one more break. Thank our final third of Hall of Famers, and then we'll finish up with Clarence. All right, thank you to E.T., a big steaming pile of Richard Jenny reference. I don't know what that is, but it sounds like, yeah, I like that one. This one is for another show. I missed that one, and I think they changed their name.

0:44:39 Lydia: Probably another show. Yeah. Maybe it's that Jenny one.

0:44:46 Thomas: Maybe. Maybe Bob Loblaw's Law podcast Philly basement bar is currently closed for spring cleaning and reorganize it and reorganizing Elect Thomas Smith President, American Honkytonk Bar Association Baltic a day. I apparently, yeah, that's not, I think anything's going to be below emperor of the universe.

0:44:56 Lydia: Yeah, and Report to Me. Ruler of the World,

0:45:03 Thomas: Yeah. Baltic today, Philip Kizer. I Thomas take Lydia to be my extremely wedded wife. Nice. Corin land. And I do. Thank you so much, Hall of Famers. You're the best. We'll take one more break. Join the ranks, by the way. patreon.com/law for the show. Pledge at that $5 level for at least a month, and you get to do your namey thingy, and we will read it out. And you get to make you get to designate like nominate politicians you know you determine apparently who runs what

0:45:41 Lydia: TM, namey thingy. Yeah. It's a lot of power.

0:45:48 Thomas: I mean they're not doing a great job based on who's running stuff but that's okay all right we'll take a break and then we'll finish up right, Matt. What more is this idiot going to say?

0:45:59 Lydia: Some

0:46:00 Matt: Well, we're going to finish up our little history lesson here on progressivism. And I honestly, I just think this is so fascinatingly ahistorical, the whole thing. And remember it just as, yeah, yeah.

0:46:08 Thomas: That's what I wonder is he has to be getting this from somewhere you know like not to say he could I'm not saying he's like too dumb or I'm saying that I'm that like usually people haven't created usually like supreme court justices don't have the time to create a completely ahistorical unless he does it in his off time but do you think there's some often there's like some you know conservative bullshitter that's like written a book that you know something's based That's usually what I find to be true with these things. Do you have any idea if that's true here or not?

0:46:29 Lydia: Text yeah ah

0:46:37 Matt: I know that His major influence is Thomas Sowell, who is actually pretty much the closest thing to Clarence Thomas in the world. He's a conservative black man. He is actually 95 now. I was just looking him up. He still living. But libertarian, economic.

0:46:45 Lydia: Peas in a pod

0:46:55 Matt: Again, there is a certain kind of logic. And I want to remind everybody before we continue that we all agree this man is destroying the world. Like he's very bad for the world, I'm not trying to give Clarenced Thomas any credit. It. But I do think it's worth engaging him on his own terms, because I think he doesn't get engaged that way enough. And his opinion basically is that the Second Amendment is the best way to guarantee protection against white supremacy, for example. He's not wrong about that. I mean, that's true. He believes the best thing you can possibly do for black people in America is give them economic liberty. Now, that happens to coincide with the billionaire view that economic economic liberty is the only kind of liberty, as

0:47:27 Thomas: I know. Well, you say it happens to coincide. That's what I've been. I mean, I maybe could wait till the end, but I've I've been wondering, it just seems so convenient that he has a bizarre alternate universe reasoning to getting to all of these conclusions, but they all happen to be exactly the same as Alito, you know, or, or what, who's not using that reasoning, you know, and it just, it feels so convenient and artificial. Like I doesn't, I don't think that could happen by chance. It feels like he's just reverse engineering stuff. Stuff. So that's why I don't know how much I care about his views, really. I mean, it's interesting to kind of look at this, but like, don't you think there's a chance he's just reverse engineering this? What are the odds that truly all of this would come up exactly how it would be otherwise if you were just a white Supreme Court justice who was an originalist?

0:47:46 Matt: Harlan Crowe's. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Yeah yeah.

0:48:20 Matt: Yeah he's been spending a lot of time in these circles, certainly this is his news feed, I mean this is like the world he lives in, and he talks to billionaires all day, like obviously those are his buddies, right? I mean that's that's who he talks to. And you know with any given Supreme Court case, when there's a Clarence Thomas concurrence, it's gonna be kind of weird. It's gonna to be like the weird version of whatever else everybody's saying, and I do kind of appreciate that as a person who's kind of of weird and has his own ways of looking at everything, but to a point. But I'm not the second longest serving Supreme Court justice, sadly. So we have to deal with this guy. Yeah, third. That's right.

0:48:47 Thomas: Yeah, you're third all right uh well let's see what

0:48:52 Matt: Let's watch a little more.

0:48:52 Thomas: He has to say here well

0:48:53 Clip: Was a terrible mistake to adopt progressivism's rejection of the Declaration's vision of universal, unalienable natural rights.

0:49:03 Matt: Did it really do that?

0:49:04 Thomas: That didn't

0:49:04 Clip: Wilson's claim that natural rights must give way to historical progress could justify the greatest mistake in our history. In Plessy v. Ferguson, my court upheld Louisiana's system of racial segregation because, quote, separate but equal, it observed, was reasonable in light of the established usages, customs, and traditions of the people, and with a view to the promotion of their comfort and the preservation of the public peace and good order. It

0:49:04 Thomas: Happen so

0:49:44 Matt: And that was bad.

0:49:45 Thomas: What you're saying is that decision looked at the history and tradition and was like huh seems like it's pretty much right on with the history in tradition yeah

0:49:52 Matt: And they did the wrong thing after looking at the history of tradition. Are you listening to yourself

0:49:54 Thomas: Weird sort of like your whole bullshit is always bullshit I'm

0:50:01 Clip: Comes as no surprise that the progressives embraced eugenics. Progressives believed that Darwinian science, the idea of ever -advancing progress written into biology itself, had proven the inherent superiority and inferiority of the races. It was only a small step for Wilson to resegregate the federal workforce. It was only another step for the government to launch sterilization programs on those deemed by the experts

0:50:35 Thomas: Curious does he think it's bad to segregate the federal workspace because that's what Trump has done. Like he fires, especially when the military Hegseth, you know, like that's, is that bad or not, man? Make up your mind.

0:50:41 Matt: That's what he's doing now totally right and there's just want to remind everybody there is no constituency in the democratic party or anywhere in the left that I'm aware of for bringing back wilsonian democrats like that's not a thing I

0:50:53 Thomas: I couldn't even tell you what it was like. Yeah. I'm bad at history, but like, it's also just not relevant to anything I care about right now. Like it's fine if you're good at history and you want to learn about it. Yeah, but it's just, it's not remotely relevant to today's political situation. It just isn't like maybe, yeah, good. Good huh

0:51:04 Lydia: When you have to go back a hundred years. Yeah, right.

0:51:04 Matt: I right I will say woodrow wilson was the only college professor academic I think he was a dean or something but he was definitely he's president princeton at one point but he's a professor only like pure academic ever elected president it was a mistake don't do it again shouldn't have it same way we shouldn't like the businessman president but he was still a politician he still had a activist organizer experience like he's on the ground you know he knew people anyway there's

0:51:22 Thomas: I mean you could say obama kind of obama kind of was but right I mean yeah yeah also I don't know of a single other person named woodrow is that like a common name yeah

0:51:37 Lydia: Red flag. Yeah?

0:51:39 Matt: Uh woody guthrie I guess that's about it but but he went by woody probably I guess I never thought of it before.

0:51:42 Lydia: Is his name Woodrow? Really? I feel like

0:51:46 Thomas: Woodrow that's a good point wait a minute is is woody from toy story's name woodrow

0:51:46 Lydia: Woody could be short for another thing, but I don't know. I'm going to look it up.

0:51:52 Matt: Woodrow Woodpecker, I guess.

0:51:52 Lydia: There's no way. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Fair enough. Woody Guthrie, his full name, Woody Gutgrie, is Woodrow Wilson GuthrIE.

0:51:56 Thomas: Holy shit this is huge this we are this huge if true

0:52:02 Lydia: Yeah. No. Did you hear me?

0:52:03 Thomas: But that again but so yeah

0:52:05 Lydia: His middle name is literally Wilson. So his name is Woodlow Wilson GutHrie.

0:52:06 Matt: Woodruff Wilson.

0:52:08 Thomas: Man he must have been into eugenics too I bet you know because it just have to be but that but that doesn't increase the number of woodrows in my mind because that's just copying a woodrow you know what I mean it's not like there's some other independently existing thing woodrow what about now I need to know if woody from toy story is actually

0:52:08 Matt: You've blown this thing open. Famously. Yeah. Right. Right?

0:52:20 Lydia: Copying a pre -existing name so I just looked it up um because it says uh woody

0:52:29 Thomas: Woodrow woodpecker did we look though

0:52:31 Lydia: Woody is named after woody strode a character actor known for many roles in western films okay so if I look up woody stroke

0:52:37 Matt: That's cool. Yeah,

0:52:35 Thomas: We need to trace back hold on we can't stop there we get to the bottom of things here

0:52:40 Lydia: I know I

0:52:39 Matt: It goes straight to the top.

0:52:41 Lydia: Know oh okay again woodrow wilson woolwine strode woody woolwine

0:52:47 Thomas: See did he who started the who drew first woodrow like who's Which came first?

0:52:51 Matt: They're all named for the president wow

0:52:53 Lydia: Why is everyone named woodrow wilson okay okay and woodrow wilsons name isn't even woodrow Wilson it is that's his middle name but his name is Thomas Woodrow Wilson so that's incredible um woody harrelson woody

0:52:55 Matt: That's amazing he's

0:52:57 Thomas: What about Woody Harrelson?

0:53:08 Matt: A thomas wow okay

0:53:08 Thomas: Oh, wow. So that like turned a middle name into a first name because everybody like named after him.

0:53:15 Lydia: Harrelson yeah Woodrow Tracy Harrelston so he He's an original.

0:53:18 Thomas: So that's an independent Woodrow.

0:53:19 Lydia: He's a original Woodrow.

0:53:19 Thomas: Sword, maybe. That is so weird. Okay. Is Woody always Woodrow?

0:53:23 Matt: Is this like dustin like

0:53:23 Lydia: Is Woody, what is Woody short for? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm wondering.

0:53:28 Matt: Duston hoffman where nobody was named dustin until dustin hoffmann like that's that is true almost he really made it big

0:53:31 Thomas: Wait, is that true?

0:53:34 Lydia: Most commonly for Woodrow, however, you can also say it's short for Elwood. Okay, any Blues Brothers fans out there? Haywood.

0:53:45 Thomas: Haywood.

0:53:46 Lydia: Yeah. And and other wood names. Sherwood, Lockwood, Linwood, Atwood, other wood names.

0:53:53 Matt: Etc okay wow

0:53:53 Thomas: Other wood names, other various honorable mention wood names. Yeah, man. Well, we got to the bottom of that. Uh, glad we did. Did, was I still pushing unpause on this? I don't remember what this asshole was talking about.

0:54:02 Matt: Very important diversion thank you a little more yeah

0:54:07 Lydia: I think we gotta keep going.

0:54:07 Clip: Of the day to be unfit to reproduce, upheld by my court in Buck v. Bell in an opinion written by no less a figure than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. We can argue over whether you believe in immutable absolute natural rights or the Wilsonian idea of ever -progressing history. Indeed, your school of civic leadership

0:54:21 Matt: That was was a bad one. Nobody

0:54:37 Thomas: Are those two different things?

0:54:39 Lydia: They don't have to be.

0:54:39 Clip: Was created to host just such arguments. But let me ask you to consider the consequences. Consequences. European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockean world with its weak, decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th century declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government. But

0:55:08 Thomas: They said

0:55:09 Matt: Says that.

0:55:09 Thomas: That? Is that something they say?

0:55:10 Clip: We were fortunate not to trade our lock -in bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens of millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the higher good of notions of history, progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, the visions of the anointed.

0:55:28 Matt: Clarence Thomas. It wasn't. Stop. Okay, that's enough.

0:55:58 Clip: None of this, of course.

0:55:57 Thomas: The visions of the, was

0:55:59 Matt: That's enough." Thomas Sowell, he was trying to say that.

0:56:00 Thomas: He trying to say anointed? I

0:56:01 Lydia: Anointed, yeah.

0:56:02 Matt: He also was trying to say Shanksville.

0:56:03 Thomas: Swear he he said annoyant yeah skanksville go

0:56:07 Lydia: Skanksville.

0:56:07 Thomas: Back to skanksvill you annoyant dick hmm

0:56:12 Matt: I just want to say a few things here. So the progressives, the actual capital P progressives... For example, just one of the many things they did for us in the early 20th century, was make sure that women could vote. And they drew on the idea of natural rights, that women have inalienable rights the way that the rest of us do.

0:56:26 Thomas: Wait but I thought they didn't believe in those matt I thought in order to be a progressive you had to say down with the declaration of independence we don't want any inalienable rights for some reason that's something we care about for no reason or

0:56:37 Matt: We hate God and we only love law. That is right. But Lochner, if you remember the Lochner era in the Supreme Court was around this time, starting in 1905 or so.

0:56:48 Thomas: My name isn't thomas woodrow was it

0:56:51 Lydia: Thomas Woodrow Wilson you got it right

0:56:53 Matt: But the Lochner era was basically using natural rights to say, well, we have a natural right to contract. So if people want to make a contract to work seven days a week for 18 hours a day, if kids want to work for 12 hours a Day, then they should be able to do that. That's their natural right. They drew on natural rights, right? It was the progressives that were using natural rates during this time to fight against the idea of corporate autocracy and abuse.

0:57:13 Thomas: Which proves my point that it doesn't actually fucking do anything I can say natural lights mean we I can enslave people because in nature you could just do that so nature and other people can be like no natural rights means blah blah blah god wants us all to whatever it doesn'T do anything

0:57:17 Matt: It's meaningless. Totally meaningless. Exactly. That the sons of Ham are naturally supposed to be enslaved, right, that was was a thing that people were saying in the 19th century about people that they'd stolen from Africa. So like, this is meaningless.

0:57:38 Thomas: Literally like in the bible there's the whole racism of of uh of of oh no is it who's the one like descendants of uh whoever oh is that that's what you're saying sorry yeah I was I was mixing up I thought there was another word for it that I'm thinking there's like the canaanites and stuff but anyway I forget what I'm saying but yeah it's like the

0:57:47 Matt: Ham. Think some sense of ham, yeah.

0:57:54 Lydia: Just know that from joseph and the amusing technicolor dreamcoat so

0:57:58 Thomas: Helpful that uh no that um that is like a justification for hundreds of years of like slavery and bigotry and whatever is from the Bible, your, where you think we get all the rights. Um, they didn't give everybody equal rights. So how would that guarantee everybody equal rates?

0:58:18 Matt: And the people who wrote the declaration certainly didn't believe in them. And I just want to point out that when Thomas, so those nomination hearings that we watched at the beginning, one of the things that the liberals kept saying, and they were not wrong to say this over and over again, was this guy believes in natural rights, which is going to be a way to get around. It's an end run around the a constitution, right? He's just going to say, this is natural rights, right, so there's no natural right for women to vote, actually. There's no natural right to have reproductive health care, right? Those aren't things that God wants us to have, so I find that they don't exist. Now, Thomas, interestingly, in his jurisprudence, has never actually really cited two natural rights because it turns out you can't really do that, but he has really done this thing where he's drawing from the privileges and immunities clause. Now, again, this isn't good faith.

0:58:59 Matt: It's not a good good faith. It's not a bad idea because the slaughterhouse cases famously in the 19th century basically found there are no state rights at the state level, that the federal government only has certain rights, whatever. I don't want to get into the slaughter house cases, but he has been fighting back against that and trying to push this idea that the privileges and immunities clause in the constitution is more important than the due process clause. And he's been doing all of this so that he can push the natural rights agenda, right? And again, there's nothing wrong with saying that people as humans have natural rights, but we tend to disagree what those things are. I think that that people have a natural right to, you know, food, shelter, and education, healthcare. But he would disagree.

0:59:32 Thomas: Don't really think anyone has any natural right. I don't know. I mean, it's just at that point it's word games. Like I think we should guarantee that people have certain rights because it's good and it's better than how nature has been for literally fucking ever it's like five minutes ago that nature was good

0:59:41 Matt: The right thing. It's the right thing, right? That's true, right, right. Yeah. I mean, we have a national right to breathe and drink water, I guess, but yeah. Or don't, yeah.

0:59:52 Thomas: Or you don't if something in nature kills you like there's no I don't I mean if you want to say god guarantees these rights I don't know how even useful that is when nobody had those rights until five minutes ago when people started enforcing them kind of yeah

0:59:54 Lydia: If or if there's a resource situation yeah yeah it should just be by the nature of humanity right like what kind of world do we want to live in yeah

1:00:08 Thomas: Either WAY Either way that doesn't do anything until he I guess I agree with Woodrow Wilson the greatest philosopher of our history or something. I don't know.

1:00:17 Matt: The most evil man in 20th century, apparently.

1:00:19 Thomas: Yeah. If anyone's saying, you know, but it's also just not important. Like, it's like, okay, you say potato, I say potatoe, whatever. Fine. As long as we both are trying to give people rights, that's fine. That's why I'm still, I wasn't not understanding what he was saying earlier, man. I was just trying to establish that it doesn't actually say anything.

1:00:39 Thomas: I'm trying to see where does the rubber actually meet the road in terms of his stupid crap about natural rights? Where does it actually prove some part of his argument? Because I don't see it. I don' t see how it actually does. I could see how he might want it to, but it doesn' t.

1:00:55 Matt: Well, this is a guy who makes every one of his incoming law clerks every year, and he's had more law clerics than most people at this point and put a lot of them into big positions. He makes them all watch The Fountainhead. Fortunately, not the 2000s version, which apparently is terrible, but he makes them watch the original Gary Cooper version. Yeah, and if you've ever read or seen The F fountainhead, it's absolute shit. I had to read it in high school. But I mean, the point of The F Fountainheads is you should just be able to do whatever you want, and that's the right thing to do.

1:01:11 Thomas: I haven' t seen that. Yeah. God. Yeah, how

1:01:22 Matt: I mean it's got the worst sex scene in the history of books, because it's basically just like mutual rape. That's his idea of great sex is like, you just get the most you can out of each other. Just to get it down to the microcosm. The macrocosm is basically that people should just be allowed to do and say whatever they want at any time. That that's because

1:01:26 Lydia: So gross weird

1:01:39 Thomas: Is that compatible with natural natural rights. I don't, then

1:01:41 Matt: You got a natural right to, I don't know. I really don't, but total economic freedom, right?

1:01:43 Thomas: You, then you do bad stuff to other people and they don't have, okay, whatever.

1:01:47 Matt: As long as you get the advantage.

1:01:48 Lydia: Well because men are not angels and Clarence Thomas is a man not an angel so

1:01:50 Matt: That is right.

1:01:48 Thomas: Well, this guy's an idiot. Yeah. This is really stupid, Matt. Anyone who could think the fountainhead was like the thing you have to make all your whatever.

1:01:51 Matt: That is right, that is right... Yeah, you

1:01:57 Thomas: Sorry, it's dumb. I dunno. I know what to say.

1:01:57 Matt: Are probably... Well, it is the same kind of 10th grader that would say that actually that national socialism is the same as socialism, right? The Nazis were socialists, which is just not, obviously, that's a very 10th grade thing to say. It's the kind of guy who would put, and this is true, I meant to mention this before, he had a giant Confederate flag in his dorm room next to a pan -African flag while he was a black radical. I don't know. I think he was just a lifetime troll.

1:02:02 Thomas: I think

1:02:08 Lydia: What

1:02:20 Matt: He's a weird-ass guy.

1:02:18 Thomas: He's just weird and psychotic. I don't know what the fuck this guy's deal is.

1:02:22 Lydia: I don't think he knows who he is like it this is bizarre

1:02:27 Matt: Yeah. This is a guy who sleeps in an RV in Walmart parking lots while taking massive amounts of money from billionaires. So, you know, we're all made of contradictions, I guess.

1:02:37 Thomas: Matt well have we had enough of one clarence thomas

1:02:42 Matt: I think it's about to kick off and I'm ready to get back to Skanksville myself. I'm done. I need to go say hi to your mom. It's been a long day, Thomas.

1:02:47 Thomas: Party and oh man

1:02:51 Lydia: Wow I dang burn oh I love that

1:02:53 Thomas: That was slutty

1:02:56 Matt: It sees glasses, I'm telling you. It'll bring it out.

1:02:57 Thomas: Jokes on you I'm proudly a resident of skanksville wear it with pride All right.

1:03:00 Matt: Out yeah me too that's why I'm going home I gotta go sleep there yeah

1:03:04 Thomas: Actually, I think, hold on. I think one of, I think it is the Skanksville flag and behind it. No, no. See, he's not a, it's got a great flag too bad. Cause it's a really good flag. You should see it. So I'm not sure we can put it on air, but it's gotta great, great flag. All right, well, from all of us here at Skanksvile and opening arguments, thanks so much, Matt. Um, this guy's an idiot. I don't care what you say. He's, he's, I'm sure he's good at something, but this is the weirdest.

1:03:18 Lydia: Who

1:03:29 Thomas: It just didn't like how interesting is it when every single decision ends up being hey whatever the law part is get rid of it like it's just like no to all laws pretty much yeah

1:03:37 Matt: None

1:03:28 Lydia: Knows what yeah it's also a weird stance for a supreme court justice to have right like to be like this entire thing that I'm supposed to be making decisions based off of that I dedicated my entire career to shouldn't exist. It's bizarre.

1:03:43 Thomas: Weird

1:03:51 Matt: Of it yeah yep uh but you know worth just trying them out on his own terms and seeing how it flies and here we are here we are okay

1:03:55 Lydia: Guy. Yeah.

1:03:54 Thomas: What a dumb thing sure matt for you in the in the comfort of your own home all I know is I'm rooting for him to stay on until 2029 and that's that's for for real that would be awesome I don't think he will but But but but here's hoping otherwise we got to like pack this court or something because this is just on unbelievable what's been going on. All right. Thanks so much, listeners and viewers. And we will see you for a rapid response Friday on the opening arguments podcast feed. Make sure to check it out.

1:04:13 Lydia: You never know. Yeah all right.

1:04:32 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments@gmail.com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.