-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is known for not asking questions during oral arguments. Thomas has not asked a question from the bench in 6 years and no other Supreme Court justice has made it through a single year without asking a question.
in an AP interview, he defended his silence. Thomas said the habit of frequent interruptions is unproductive and “I think that when somebody’s talking, somebody ought to listen.”
Thomas claims that most of the information is already in the briefs and amicus curiae, “and there are a few questions around the edges.”
They don’t call it an oral monologue. It’s called an oral argument. This is the opportunity for the Justices to test the validity and soundness of the attorney’s arguments. It would be a waste of time for attorneys to get up before the Court and simply recite their briefs.
Thomas concludes by saying “I don’t like to badger people.” Is that how he sees it? Either you remain utterly silent or you badger people? In logic, this is know as the False Dichotomy fallacy. This type of logical fallacy occurs when only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there is at least one additional option.
H/T: The Hill, The Washington Post.
Gene,
You are right about any impeachment chance. I think 1 year for Thomas is too much.
raff,
Agreed. Without a doubt, Thomas is an embarrassment professionally and personally. However, given the current composition of right-wing obstructionists in the Senate, how likely are we to get Thomas impeached? Not very is my read on it. The Senate is so mired in their special interest corruption that even drafting the Articles required are probably a non-starter. To me, he is (along with former CJ Rehnquist) a perfect argument for Amendment so as to change the lifetime appointment to SCOTUS to a term of years certain. 20 years on the bench is plenty.
id707.5,
“Don’t question the logic of the only logical one. You will be proven wrong unless there is agreement that you are wrong, but that will not happen without and unless you agree that you were wrong to start with.”
First, I’m not the only logical one, but thanks for the promotion. All of the guest bloggers are very good if not excellent logicians as are several of the regular commentators. Second, you will be proven wrong if you are wrong; agreement is not required. Logic and proof are required though.
“There are some on here that still engage in nonsensical debates with the unwilling.”
Just like there are some who would jump into something they are ill-equipped to deal with. And by nonsensical, do you mean things like people who do things like use multiple sockpuppets and threaten to reveal personal information about other anonymous posters over some personal but private matter? I know you. Don’t start none, won’t be none. We used to be friends. Whether we stay friendly or not is up to you.
There you have it.
firefly is correct. Thomas is a quiet crook. He is pretending to be a human being and pretending to be a jurist.
MM,
Don’t question the logic of the only logical one. You will be proven wrong unless there is agreement that you are wrong, but that will not happen without and unless you agree that you were wrong to start with.
Rule no 2. See rule above, you should be fine if you learn to agree. If you don’t, then you’ll be waisting efforts of yours. There are some on here that still engage in nonsensical debates with the unwilling. There you have it.
You can’t seem to understand that I’m criticizing your logic such as it is, MM.
As to your critiques of logic, I’ll start caring what you think when you demonstrate that you can properly use the tool. Insulting your crap poetry is just for fun. It has nothing to do with frustration, “friend”. You aren’t mentally equipped to frustrate me. Annoy? Sure. Frustrate? Not in the slightest. I simply don’t like you. Of course, you completely misrepresenting others statements just so you can attack them all the while acting like a morally superior condescending jackass would have nothing at all to do with that. (Pst! That was sarcasm. It has everything to do with it.)
“Additionally, your inability to distinguish poetry from reasoned argument bespeaks a depth of confusion practically beyond sounding”. Actually, your inability to distinguish creative typing from poetry doesn’t lend itself to confusion. Your poetry plainly sucks as do your arguments, albeit for completely different reasons.
“”[H]is silence was indicative of nothing but his silence” constitutes a tautology.” No shit, genius. It also constitutes a true statement. Just because it is a tautology doesn’t mean it isn’t true despite your implication to the contrary. Tautologies are often employed in properly utilized predicate logic. You’d know this if you knew what you were talking about.
“The title of Professor Turley’s posting reads: Justice Thomas Speaks Out, and so we can fairly quote Justice Thomas and employ his own words in constructing our analysis of what they mean about him. Silence can indicate many things, like catatonia, for example, or even death. Saying that silence only indicates itself lapses into self-referential solipsism, what psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton calls ‘the thought-terminating cliche.'”
You’d know all about cliché and thought termination based on your writing. Sadly, again, you’re wrong. Being a tautology doesn’t make a statement false. In its barest form A=A is a tautology. It’s also the Rule of Identity and one of the foundations for the Laws of Thought. So now you’ve demonstrated (in your earlier statements) that you don’t understand the Law of the Excluded Middle (your false dichotomy), but you’ve now upped the ante to show you don’t understand the Rule of Identity. Care to demonstrate that you don’t understand the Law of Noncontradiction and score a tri-fecta? If you’re going to show how wrong you are in how you think, why not go for the gusto?
“As for your football analogy, I have moved no metaphorical goalposts, but have simply blocked each of your poor punts and recovered them for touchdowns in your own end zone. Two can play at the sports metaphor game.”
Again showing you don’t know what you’re talking about. Moving the goal posts isn’t just a football analogy, dingus. It’s an informal logical fallacy wherein one demand of proof is substituted for another, for example, when you take the subject of Thomas’ in court questioning and bring up his clerks writing his memos and holdings – which have nothing to do with his questioning from the bench. I could also characterize that fallacy as non-sequitur as well, but there is no need to rub your nose in it. Other than it is fun.
“By the way, and just for your edification, former Vice president Dick Cheney provided the definitive example of arguing from ignorance. When asked to provide evidence of Saddam Hussein’s non-existent ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ Cheney sneered into his armpit and mumbled: ‘We just don’t know.’ By this he meant that Saddam Hussein did indeed possess such awful bombs because America had no knowledge to the contrary! That worked on a sizable majority of the American people — not an encouraging sign, but a harbinger of violent disaster ahead.”
So what? Irrelevant to the point that you omitted logical options that could be proper causation of Thomas’ silence.
“Finally, Justice Thomas bears the burden of proving his own worth, both through his own words and his deeds. We, on the other hand, do not bear the burden of disproving his worthlessness for him on the basis of words or actions that he does not supply. Though he has done and said little, he has done enough of both. The public can now deliberate upon its verdict of him.”
Again, irrelevant to your logic being fallacious.
Like I said, as long as your arguments are a veritable grab bag of logical fallacies, I’ll continue to point them out. I don’t mind. Really.
It is fun to make fun of Clarence Thomas but the sad fact is that he does great harm to this country.
The Court has an unannounced vacancy. Any legally literate carbon-based life form may apply.
Pete,
That is an Anita Hill moment…..
question that most often goes through justice thomas’s mind during arguments,”i wonder if they can see me playing with myself under these robes?”
You really can’t understand a simple point, Gene H. I have repeatedly said that I judged Justice Thomas on the words that he spoke in the interview cited. You keep trying to assert that I criticized the English that he didn’t speak in the arguments he did not, from choice, enter.
Also, your ad hominem and irrelevant (i.e., non sequitur comments about my poetry defeat your attempts to pose as an informed advocate for reasoned argumentation. Your frustration shows, friend.
Additionally, your inability to distinguish poetry from reasoned argument bespeaks a depth of confusion practically beyond sounding; and your implication that one cannot do each separate justice has no basis in fact. The name “Wallace Stevens” should suffice to provide all the evidence one could want to the contrary. Some attorneys have made excellent poets, and vice versa.
And by the way, “his silence was indicative of nothing but his silence” constitutes a tautology. “It is what it is,” “boys will be boys”, “nothing from nothing leaves nothing,” etc. Arguing from a premise by just repeating it has an analogue in the BASIC computer virus:
START: GO TO START
Nothing you can do with that but flip the power switch and reboot.
The title of Professor Turley’s posting reads: Justice Thomas Speaks Out, and so we can fairly quote Justice Thomas and employ his own words in constructing our analysis of what they mean about him. Silence can indicate many things, like catatonia, for example, or even death. Saying that silence only indicates itself lapses into self-referential solipsism, what psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton calls “the thought-terminating cliche.”
As for your football analogy, I have moved no metaphorical goalposts, but have simply blocked each of your poor punts and recovered them for touchdowns in your own end zone. Two can play at the sports metaphor game.
By the way, and just for your edification, former Vice president Dick Cheney provided the definitive example of arguing from ignorance. When asked to provide evidence of Saddam Hussein’s non-existent “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Cheney sneered into his armpit and mumbled: “We just don’t know.” By this he meant that Saddam Hussein did indeed possess such awful bombs because America had no knowledge to the contrary! That worked on a sizable majority of the American people — not an encouraging sign, but a harbinger of violent disaster ahead.
Finally, Justice Thomas bears the burden of proving his own worth, both through his own words and his deeds. We, on the other hand, do not bear the burden of disproving his worthlessness for him on the basis of words or actions that he does not supply. Though he has done and said little, he has done enough of both. The public can now deliberate upon its verdict of him.
I have never argued a case in court, but on jury duty once in a civil suit I got to witness a judge continually berating an attorney for repeatedly doing what the judge had told him not to do. The defendant in the case did not even show up and had no attorney to represent him. The attorney for the plaintiff had no opposition and tried to take advantage of that by making claims that the judge ruled out of order. Before sending us off to reach a verdict, the judge admonished us that we could only award punitive damages — the whole point of the case before us — if the defendant had broken any laws or acted in bad faith. Since the plaintiff’s attorney had presented no evidence of fraud or other misrepresentation by the defendant, we found in the defendants favor — just following instructions.
So I don’t begrudge justices the right to badger attorneys if the attorneys deserve it. On the other hand, if the attorneys deserve badgering and don’t get it, then perhaps the justices have not done their job. I would expect, though, that the badgering concern critical points germane to the case and its significance as legal precedent. Justice Thomas’s obdurate refusal to comment in oral arguments — for years — leads me to assume that he doesn’t even know his job, let alone how to do it. Just posing as an inscrutable Sphinx does not bespeak ageless wisdom.
“He could have, but he wouldn’t, and since he didn’t, therefore he can” offers no evidence of anything supportive of any conclusion whatsoever — and sounds like complete gibberish, to boot. ”
Too bad nobody said that but you, Mr. Straw Man. What I said was “He could have as a matter of authority, but he didn’t. He didn’t so either he cannot as a matter of ability or will not as a matter of proclivity” . . . which unlike your previous statement isn’t illogical, contains no fallacy and is correct as a matter of factual evidence presented. However, after reading what you call poetry, I will stipulate you are qualified to write your own gibberish as you did above.
“I’ll continue to judge Justice Thomas on his misuse of language whenever he misuses it, and I refuse to speculate about how well he might possibly speak on the basis of his silent refusal to do so. ”
Well good for you! No one but you was speculating about how well he may possibly speak. Other than perhaps you. What was pointed to was your error in stating that because he didn’t speak, he cannot speak when other options are present. Again, “able to” and “unwilling to” are not the same thing. You were ignoring other options. His silence was indicative of nothing but his silence.
“The absence of evidence proves absolutely nothing” . . . except the absence of evidence.
Your straw man is showing again. Or perhaps it’s just your general inability to apply logic and argumentation properly. I didn’t point out that you were arguing from ignorance. I pointed out that you made three logical fallacies in your previous statement: argumentum e silentio (because Thomas is silent, he must not be able to speak), false dichotomy (if Thomas is silent, it must be because of stupidity or not) and fallacy of simple cause (there is no other causation than stupidity possible for Thomas’ actions or lack thereof). Sure, there is plenty of evidence Thomas isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but that may not be his only motivation for remaining silent. The criticism was of your fallacious logic, not the probative quality of your evidence. However, I expect simplistic causal analysis from simple minds.
“If Justice Thomas wishes us to commend his command of articulate English, he can give us sample evidence of it. Letting his literate clerks write his opinions for him doesn’t count.”
Move those goal posts much? The topic wasn’t his clerks writing his opinions. It was his lack of questioning from the bench.
As long as your arguments are a veritable grab bag of logical fallacies, I’ll continue to point them out. I don’t mind. Really.
From TalkinDog:
“… when he was an Assistant Missouri Attorney General back in Jefferson City, MO in the seventies when asked about the Confederate Flag on the wall behind his desk in his office [Clarence Thomas said]: “I am unreconstructed. Ya’ll know what that means do you not?”
First: As another example from Justice Thomas on why he ought to speak as little as possible. Addressing his interlocutor(s) first as “You all” and then (in the same sentence) as “you” confuses the concepts of plural and singular.
Second: Asking a rhetorical question in fact makes (and masks) a statement which assumes the unstated agreement of the listener: namely, “You know what ‘unreconstructed’ means.” This pseudo-question does not expect — and would find startling — a response by the interlocutor such as: “No, I don’t know what you mean by ‘unreconstructed.’ Please enlighten me.”
Meaning exists in people, not in words. If Justice Thomas has no meaning, then neither his words nor his silence will either.
Do not attack this fine upstanding Judge. How racial are you folks.
Back in Vietnam we had a slogan for our mediocre and endlessly self-justifying generals: “If you could have, you would have; but you didn’t, so you can’t.” The phrase meant simply: “Put up or Shut up.” Given his own furnished evidence of intellectual infirmity, Justice Thomas, to give him the benefit of the doubt, may actually understand the necessity of adopting the second alternative as much as possible.
The point of Oral Argument is to discover facts and information that has not been included in the briefs, so it is stupid for Thomas to claim he doesn’t need to ask questions UNLESS one concludes that Thomas’ mind is already made up and he won’t be swayed by newly-revealed information.
Thomas is stupid and prejudiced — a lethal combination..
idealist707:
Of course, I agree with your points but I would like to add one thought: One of the goals in strip searches is to find any drugs a person might be hiding. It is a well-established fact that many (if not most) of the Wall St. crooks are into drugs, cocaine being a favorite. So, it is highly likely that one of them might be hiding drugs at the time of arrest. Therefore, a strip search would be called for with Wall St. crooks.
It also might not be a bad idea for one of The Gang of Five on the Sup.Ct. to be strip searched over an unpaid fine; it might be a teaching moment for them as well.
The inability to speak the English language coherently does not at all mean the same thing as refusing to speak the English language when offered the opportunity. As noted above, Justice Thomas did speak for the interview in question, and I criticized his use of language on the basis of the evidence that Justice Thomas provided. In his own words he failed to distinguish the speaker from the listener, using the identical pronoun “somebody” for both — sloppy and ambiguous..
Now, one could argue that he “could have” spoken properly, had he, in fact, wished to do so, but for some unknown reason he chose to speak like a bumpkin instead. I think it safe to rule out this possibility. When he chose to speak, I have to assume that Justice Thomas had no intention of making a fool of himself, ironically, or otherwise. To say: “He could have, but he wouldn’t, and since he didn’t, therefore he can” offers no evidence of anything supportive of any conclusion whatsoever — and sounds like complete gibberish, to boot.
I’ll continue to judge Justice Thomas on his misuse of language whenever he misuses it, and I refuse to speculate about how well he might possibly speak on the basis of his silent refusal to do so. As former Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld might have said, but didn’t: “The absence of evidence proves absolutely nothing, but to claim that it does constitutes the fallacy of arguing from ignorance.”
If Justice Thomas wishes us to commend his command of articulate English, he can give us sample evidence of it. Letting his literate clerks write his opinions for him doesn’t count.
“Excuse me I don’t mean to badger you, but who has [put] pubic hair on my Coke?”
http://www.infoplease.com/t/hist/anita-hill-testimony/