Justice Clarence Thomas is finding increasingly creative ways to justify reshaping long-standing laws.
During a rare appearance at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, the George H.W. Bush–appointed justice said the Supreme Court should take a more critical approach to settled precedent, arguing that decided cases are not “the gospel,” ABC News reported.
Thomas, 77, compared his Supreme Court colleagues to passengers on a train, and said: ”We never go to the front to see who’s driving the train, where is it going. And you could go up there in the engine room, find it’s an orangutan driving the train, but you want to follow that just because it’s a train.”
He reasoned that some precedents were simply “something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”
What?
It’s better than saying, “I’ve been bribed a shit ton and no one is caring, so I’ll say and do whatever I want.”
An orangutan is driving the train and apparently you’re cool with that.
I think he called Trump an orangutan, let’s tell Daddy and get him fired .
There’s pressure valves going off all over the place, and he’s fixing it by shovelling in more coal.
It’s the old orangutan-train-engineer argument, which gained legal precedent in Plessy v. Ferguson, brought by passage of an 1887 Florida law, whereby states began to require that railroads furnish separate accommodations for each race.
Yeah, it’s crazy because, if the train is functioning perfectly fine, and has been for centuries, why does it matter who’s driving it?
He wants to be the driver. That’s why. He calls into question the way things have worked because he wants to take over.
And besides, the train driver does not have any control over the route the train will take.