D.C. Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton made a shocking comment about Associate Justice Clarence Thomas this week, stating that ” We’ve got someone who proposes to be African-American on the court.” It is a shocking insult directed at Thomas and it is unworthy of Norton. It also seems to suggest that someone cannot be a true African-American if they are conservative.
The comment came in response to a question on whether President Obama would select a black nominee to replace Justice Stevens. Norton reportedly responded “We’re not sure this president is ever going to nominate another African-American to the court. [Barack Obama]’s African-American. We’ve got someone who proposes to be African-American on the court.”
One can only imagine the response if a white member said about Stevens that “we got someone who proposes to be white on the court.” There is no question that Thomas is a lightning rod for liberals, but this comment should be roundly condemned by liberals and immediately retracted by Norton. One can certainly disagree with Thomas’ writing, as I do, while preserving civility and, yes, respect in the debate. Thomas is a person with an amazing personal story. Clarence Thomas was raised in Pin Point, Georgia — a poor black town without a sewage system or paved roads. His father was a farm worker and his mother was a domestic worker who spoke Gullah as a first language. While liberals were quick to celebrate the life of Justice Sotomayor for growing up in the projects and achieving so much in her life, they appear unwilling to credit Thomas with his own amazing and difficult life, including being left homeless as a child.
It is particularly disappointing from a former Georgetown law professor. I have great respect for Delegate Norton, though we were on different sides in the D.C. Vote controversy. However, this is only the latest personal attack on Thomas that is entirely out of line.
For the story, click here
Rich.
“BTW–we don’t have “free market capitalism.” Free markets assume transparency and equal access to information. ”
You are dead on correct. All markets have some kind of regulation, whether it is by government or by coalitions of participants in those markets. If left unregulated by the state markets end up controlled by cartels for the benefit of the members of the cartels. Also government regulators are often subject to regulatory capture by some market participants and regulation is skewed to benefit these participants not the public interest. The problem of regulatory capture is the one good argument against government regulation.
Some people embrace the fallacy that a free market is one without state regulation. A market that is unregulated may start of free but won’t long remain so as some paricipants will gain the market power to skew the market in their favour.
For a free market I believe the following are necessary:-
1/ A large enough number of participants on both sides of the market;
2/ That no small number of participants control enough of the market activity that they generate market power for themselves which allows them to skew market operation in their favour.
3/ A sufficient proportion of informed participants on each side of the market. A market can support a certain proportion of uninformed participant speculating in it but when this proportion gets too high it becomes unstable.
4/ That the not be too much of a size discrepency between participants on opposite sides of the market.
In this list I have used waffly and imprecise terms such as too much or enough, I cannot replace these with percentages because they would differ from market to market. However the fact is that many if not most markets by their very nature cannot satisfy the conditions of the above list.
For example consider markets in medical services, a medical patient simply does not know enough to detect whether his treating doctors are diligent knowledgeable or unscrupulous quacks. The same is true in the market for legal services.
Consider the labour market, on one side you have large employers who need the labour of any particular employee less than that employee needs a job. In the absence of effective labour unions as in the case of the USA, employees are subject to the greater market power of employers.
The fact is that to keep a market operating freely and transparently one need considerable regulation but it has to be good regulation. The 2008 financial crisis was the result of among other things the repeal some of the good regulation introduced in the aftermath of the depression, such as Glass Steagall.
In the absence of regulations to restrain them financial institutions get caught up in playing the competitive game of I can leverage more than you can. A financial institution that choose not to play will get short term results that are so bad that they will result in overwhelming pressure to play. Of course if the conservative institution survives until the bubble bursts its failure to participate will be shown to be sensible but one cannot predict how long a bubble can grow, it depends on unknowns such as how much borrowable or stealable money their actually is. Bubbles do not end until some participants are stopped by running out of money. The fact is that wise bank officers who see that a bubble is in progress and refuse to make risky investments or loans will lose their jobs well before most bubbles burst. The pressure to limit lemming like stupid behaviour by packs of financial institutions can only come from agencies outside the control of those institutions.
When George Soros and Warren Buffet both say that certain types of securities are dangerous only the very stupid ignore this. Traditional securities like shares or bonds can lose all their value but they cannot become negative in value, but derivatives can do this. Even if a player has protected himself against a portfolio of derivative going negative by buying offsetting derivatives from other players, that assumes the players on the other side of the offsetting derivatives can make good on their bad bets. The reason that it was necessary to bail out AIG was because one of the big banks (I forget which) had insured its CDO portfolio with offsetting bets with AIG. If AIG went down so did this big bank.
What we have here is case of reverse domino theory. I am sure everyone has seen that illustration of how SE Asian nations will fall to Communism illustrated by setting up patterns of domino tiles on their ends so that pushing over one causes the rest to fall in series. Well imagine the same arrangement except that the dominos are collected by a silk thread that is loose enough to allow each one to lean into position of inevitable instability before it puts tension on the thread to the previous. One could then get the tiles to fall forward in reverse order. Derivatives can work like this to propagate the failure of one investor through many intermediaries to another distant investor who had no idea that his financial status was hostage to that with whom he himself did not deal.
Innovation in rocket technology and explosives is good. Innovation in financial markets should be treated with extreme suspicion. Banking and accounting should be boring and low paid jobs as in Monty Python skits of the nineteen seventies.
“I don’t believe any of the “liberals” here said [J.]Thomas wasn’t black.”
Read back. No one did.
“We said (in summary) that he is a barely competent toady to [J.] Scalia and the dumbest justice at SCOTUS.”
Evidenced by his ABA rating and his case record. You want to read through his drivel, be my guest.
“I don’t believe any of the “liberals” here said [J.]Thomas wasn’t black. We said (in summary) that he is a barely competent toady to [J.] Scalia and the dumbest justice at SCOTUS.”
“It’s also true that he is hardly a shining star in the legal firmament, basically following [J.] Scalia.”
I’d like to see proof of these claims. As I recall, there are reports from J. Scalia that show the opposite is true and J. Thomas exercised his influence to move other Justices, including J. Scalia, to adopt J. Thomas’s view.
“It is a shocking insult directed at Thomas and it is unworthy of Norton.”
Professor, I think that the pretense of civility in courts is not appropriate in politics. Elanor Holmes Norton may be a lawyer and may have been a law professor in the past but now she is a politician on the opposite side from that which appointed Clarence Thomas. The fact is that George H W Bush would never have appointed any black man to the supreme court unless he had sufficiently absorbed blame blacks for everything attitudes of the white overclass into which he has successfully integrated himself.
We cannot be certain of the exact thought processes which brought Thomas to express the attitudes he does. Some people are simply born conservative and if they are born in a country where conservatism is strongly linked to racial and class privilege for the a class and race to which they do not belong, they will tend to adopt belief systems from the overclass. If they themselves fail to escape underclass poverty the reality of their own situation will counteract this tendency, but for some who do escape they will adopt uber-overclass attitudes and display a contempt for those from whom they came with intensity that would do credit to a grand exalted dingbat of the KKK.
Another alternative is that Thomas is a rational social climber who has recognized that any publis statement of recognition of white responsibility for the abject state of black Americans does not help one climb high in law or politics just as has that other black social climber Barak Obama.
Gabby Johnson! Ahhh! Just what I needed with coffee after a long night. Thanks, mespo!
Teresa–
“liberals have invaded our public schools and literally kept the kids who grow up to be adults stupid just so they have a base to pamder to.”
Right! It’s liberals who keep American kids ignorant by giving them great works of literature to read and discuss, by teaching them science, by getting them to think for themselves, and by giving them the tools to help them expand their minds and exercise their creative abilities. Oh yes, and by encouraging them to ask questions! It’s not the conservative wingnuts who try to censor what kids read and who teach them that the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old and that the Bible is a history book. I’d say the right wingnuts are the ones indoctrinating children with a certain unquestioning “controlled” mindset in hopes of having them grow up to be an ignorant, brainwashed, dittohead base of adults to pander to.
Teresa:
That is the best paragraph of disjointed, incomprehensible, nonsequitur, gibberish I have ever seen. Brava! If Buddha were here, I am sure he’d appreciate me playing -one more time- his favorite skit from Blazing Saddles in tribute to your writing. We are all in your debt for clearly saying what needed to be said, including our “lovely children” here today:
What would you think if since Obama is “only” half black someone said that he isn’t black enough?
Clarence Thomas in fact pulled himself up by his bootstraps but liberal blacks are aiding in this welfare mentality that it okay to have the government take care of a person’s wants and needs and decisions beause they don’t know better. liberals have invaded our public schools and literally kept the kids who grow up to be adults stupid just so they have a base to pamder to. Blacks feel like they are owed something nowadays because of slavery when not 1 African American today went through slavery. Black liberals today are keeping the chains on themselves and people like Al Sharpton aare aiding them by destroying the black family (no fathers) and spreading the welfare mentality. Democrats are all about giving a hand out and having other blacks reliant on the government.
What Norton said isn’t about politics it is about pure racism just becuase she doesn’t like his political philosphy.
Mr. Freeman:
Ah, a breath of fresh air. Great post. Digital Dave is probably chewing his digits as to how to respond. When you start throwing around the concept of principles and imply that there are universal laws that govern the universe and the affairs of man, you can almost hear his eyes glaze over as they roll back into his head.
Digital Dave and his crew have been trying to evade the law of gravity for a good many years. We are seeing the results.
I agree with Prof. Turley. It was an insulting thing to say. It’s also true that he is hardly a shining star in the legal firmament, basically following Scalia. Not that much of a follower of SCOTUS but I have read that he rarely asks questions.
As for EH Norton, I used to think pretty highly of her, as she is well spoken, but then I saw her on CSPAN coverage of a congressional hearing lambasting the top brass of the big banks. Listening to her questions and interactions with the bankers, I was shocked at her ignorance of very simple financial “instruments.” Here she is on a finance congressional panel and it was very clear from her questions [not just one, but a whole series] that she had no idea what a promissory note and a mortgage is. Surely someone who is a Yale law grad and sits on a financial panel which one day will have to grapple with what to do with Fannie and Freddie should know the basics. The other congress people weren’t much better, but I was expecting more of her.
Jason
Blouise-
I will concede the point that I chose a poor turn of words, though I think the meaning is still there.
When we say something like, “If you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain about the government,” we don’t literally mean that you should have your 1st Amendment rights suspended. Similarly, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of ripping conservatives for their vitriol while ignoring or even praising the same bile from the left.
So for the record, no, I don’t think you should have your 1st Amendment rights taken away or your ideas governed by outside forces, and yes, you caught me using an imprecise sentence. Mea culpa.
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And I apologize for the sarcasm.
I strongly disagree with JT on this one. Eleanor Holmes Norton has a quick wit and a precise tongue. Although she is older than Thomas, she began her first year in Congress at the same time as he was being confirmed to the Supreme Court. In that sense they are contemporaries. She knows the man’s politics and, having earned their law degrees from the same institution, Yale, she knows his intellectual abilities as well as anyone. Perhaps part of her disdain for the man is based on District of Columbia v Heller where Thomas voted with the majority in a case involving the 2nd Amendment. Norton strongly disagreed with that decision.
If Norton wants to go after Thomas, fine with me. If you have ever seen her handle Colbert, a man who scares the bejeebers out of most politicians (especially those in the White House), then you understand the intellectual power and wicked wit she possesses. I don’t believe she was insulting Thomas … she was simply giving her truthful opinion of him. JT considered it an insult … I don’t. How can the truth be insulting?
I am not trying to convince you of anything. Eleanor Holmes Norton is like a touchstone … you either get it or you don’t.
DigitalDave:
“Oh, yes, that’s called a false dichotomy, pretending there are only two choices and one of them is absurd. It’s also known as lying.”
How is this a false dichotomy? Byron seems to be arguing that anything less than freedom is not really freedom. In other words, if I have the right to eat whatever I want, unless it contains too much trans fat, then I don’t really have the right to eat whatever I want.
You might say this is a silly distinction to make, and that partial freedoms (or whatever you’d like to call them) are satisfactory or preferred. Judging by his quoted passages, I think Byron would disagree and argue that these partial freedoms demonstrate a lack of principle. Some of his quoted passages addressed this point directly. I’m not skilled enough to summarize the virtue of dedication to principle in a few sentences here, but I will ask this question: If freedom is sometimes good, why isn’t it always good? In your own minds do you really apply the same set of rules to each situation?
A great non-political example to demonstrate this is gravity. You might say, “Gravity doesn’t apply in the same way everywhere! It’s weaker the farther away you go from a mass.” You’d be right. But the same law of gravity applies in all situations. That law dictates that in some situations gravity is strong, and in others weak. But the law itself is unchanging.
Blouise-
I will concede the point that I chose a poor turn of words, though I think the meaning is still there.
When we say something like, “If you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain about the government,” we don’t literally mean that you should have your 1st Amendment rights suspended. Similarly, I was pointing out the hypocrisy of ripping conservatives for their vitriol while ignoring or even praising the same bile from the left.
So for the record, no, I don’t think you should have your 1st Amendment rights taken away or your ideas governed by outside forces, and yes, you caught me using an imprecise sentence. Mea culpa.
Jason
Blouise-
“I love it when someone tells me what I do and do not have a right to think and or say. It’s so …. didactic.”
I know, isn’t it horrible — oh wait, that was in response to my post. Hmm, I don’t see anything about telling people about what they have a right to think and say. My post does make the obvious implication that what you say has consequences, and though I will fight like hell to protect your right to think and do what you want, I’ll do so knowing it also protects my right to criticize what you say.
Note Rich and Gingermaker’s responses to my post. Though I do not find their arguments convincing (and others have already said more or less what I would in response), they addressed what I actually said.
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Jason … Jason
Your words then: “You have no right to be outraged about stupid, snotty discourse from the right if you endorse what Norton said.”
Your words now: “I will fight like hell to protect your right to think and do what you want …”
So I have no future right to be outraged at right-wing nutter statements because I support and agree with Eleanor Holmes Norton’s statement about Thomas but you will fight like hell to protect my right to think and do what I want.
Sounds like a typical right-wing juxtaposition … delivered in the usual didactic style … egotistical and sanctimonious and … hey … wait a minute … are you Clarence Thomas?
DDave,
A bit of advice.
Byron is indeed trapped in a false dichotomy but liar is
1) a bit harsh and
2) against the One Rule.
Prof. Turley doesn’t allow personal insults like “Byron is a liar.” It’s called the Civility Rule. I’ve broken it myself, usually on purpose for humorous intent, but posts like that will get you censored. And I’m not the hall monitor, so do as you will, but that’s how things work here. This is the Prof’s playground. He has almost no rules. But you did just break the one he has stated on numerous occasions.
Byron is . . . confused and enamored by shiny objects in that he thinks that the model of free market capitalism is not only perfection but that the model translates perfectly to reality. Which is doesn’t any more than communism did. A little perplexed maybe when it comes to economics in theory versus reality and the purpose of government, but he’s not a liar. He actually believes some of the crazy corporatist crap he says. But he’s honest about it.
Byron — It all goes back to individual rights, do I or do I not have [freedom] Or do I need … tyranny …
——————
Um, tough question but let me think a second…
Oh, yes, that’s called a false dichotomy, pretending there are only two choices and one of them is absurd. It’s also known as lying.
Byron is a liar.
Mespo:
are you serious? For every regulation they get rid of they create new ones. And the ones they create are even more ridiculous than the ones they get rid of. The CFR isn’t shrinking, why do you think that is?
http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html#page1
Browse away to your hearts content.
People are not smart enough to efficiently control a large society with various regulations, the regulations require additional regulations because some b-crat in some basement in Washington who couldn’t pour piss out of a boot screwed up and needed more regulations to make the regulations that he couldn’t figure out in the first place work. But they usually don’t and so even more regulations are needed and then pretty soon the jackasses in DC are telling us that sugar and salt are bad for us. How much government intervention in your life do you want?
Government sucks the life out of everything it touches, all those codes and regulations that don’t do jack shit are made so that stupid people can feel they are somehow in control. We need objective laws not bullshit created by dumb asses who are purveyors of political pull.
It all goes back to individual rights, do I or do I not have the right to eat trans fats, smoke, drink alcohol, lose money in a hedge fund or engage in any activity in which I am my only “victim”? Or do I need the soft tyranny of government paternalism wiping my ass from cradle to grave? It is one or the other. I know which one I want.
“please give me the run-down on all of the deregulation that has been going on over the last 30 years. I am all eyes.”
*******************
I’ll help Rich:
* 1976 – Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act
* 1977 – Emergency Natural Gas Act PL 95-2
* 1978 – Airline Deregulation Act PL 95-50
* 1978 – National Gas Policy Act PL 95-621
* 1980 – Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act
* 1980 – Motor Carrier Act PL 96-296
* 1980 – Regulatory Flexibility Act PL 96-354
* 1980 – Staggers Rail Act PL 96-448
* 1982 – Garn – St Germain Depository Institutions Act PL
* 1982 – Bus Regulatory Reform Act PL 97-261
* 1989 – Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act PL 101-60
* 1992 – National Energy Policy Act PL 102-486
* 1996 – Telecommunications Act PL 104-104
* 1999 – Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act PL 106-102
That’s just wiki’s cursory list.
Byron by the looks of your avatar your all ears too 🙂
Rich:
“Byron–you’re obviously such a tool: “but government has yet to be able to do that even after 80 years of ostensible financial reform and regulation.” We’ve been undoing regulation for 30 years and that’s the problem.”
please give me the run-down on all of the deregulation that has been going on over the last 30 years. I am all eyes.