The Most Hilarious Clarence Thomas Opinionating Yet

If you haven’t had a chance to read Clarence Thomas’ dissent in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which was decided in late June, you have denied yourself good times! Our Special Correspondent for Supreme Court LOLs breaks it down for us, and it’s GREAT STUFF.

thomas’ core argument is that the court’s holding assumes that first amendment protections apply to speech directed at minors, which thomas thinks is WRONG WRONG WRONG…. he explains his theories of constitutional interpretation, which he supports by citing his own opinion in a previous case, an opinion that not a single other justice joined! in case that citation was insufficient, he then… cites another opinion of his that no other justice joined!…. this is a BOLD move.

but all of this is just a warmup. we are still getting to the fabulous part. this is the part when thomas starts talking about what thomas jefferson believed about raising his children. and thomas is talking about this because, in his mind, we have to use exactly the interpretation of constitutional language that the founders did — which means we have to imagine exactly what they would have thought, looking at the historic record to guide us. and so thomas, with scrupulous attention to every detail of jefferson’s parenting practices, totally fails to mention any of jefferson’s children except the white ones he had with his wife.