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A theory deeply etched in our law is that a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.

Clarence Thomas

I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I’m on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that’s your problem. Your appeal is denied. This 40 year sentence just might teach you a lesson.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Enough Lesson Prison Problem Smart Stupidity Teaching Yourself
But what I believe is that if a person’s individual rights or right to be a part of our economic system is violated under statute, we aggressively go after it. But we don’t issue mandates to businesses that you’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do that.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Believe Business Issues Person Violence Yourself
I don’t believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Believe Foundation Myself Philosophy Right
Even as someone who’s labeled a conservative – I’m a Republican I’m black, I’m heading up this organization in the Reagan administration – I can say that conservatives don’t exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they’re welcome.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Black Citizenship Identity Myself Organization
The Constitution does not vest in Congress the authority to protect society from every bad act that might befall it. If followed to its logical extreme, [this approach] would result in an unwarranted expansion of federal power.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Authority Constitution Power Protection Result Society
Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Citizenship Country Goodness Human Ourselves Time
Unfortunately, the reality was that, for political reasons or whatever, there was a need to enforce antidiscrimination laws, or at least there was a perceived need to do that.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Fortunate Law Need Politics Reality Reason
I love being around people who work with their hands, who do the hard things to keep our country going. They’re just my kind of people.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Country Hands Kind Love Myself Patriot People Work
Religious liberty is about freedom of action in matters of religion generally, and the scope of that liberty is directly correlated to the civil restraints placed upon religious practice.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Action Freedom Liberty Place Religious
I think segregation is bad, I think it’s wrong, it’s immoral. I’d fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don’t need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Breathe Fight Immoral Learning Myself Person Reading Separate Thinking White Writing Wrong
You didn’t think of angels as white or black. They were angels.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angel Black Thinking White Yourself
And I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Angry God Myself Right Thankful
If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything-and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Government Limitation Power Virtual
To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Deep Human Humanity Ourselves Race
I was sympathetic to virtually all groups that wanted to get away from the old system.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Myself Old Run Sympathy System
I agree with the (Supreme Court’s) holding that racial discrimination in higher education admissions will be illegal in 25 years. They are illegal now.
CLARENCE THOMAS

Discrimination Illegal Judgement Myself Race

A theory deeply etched in our law is that a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.

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A theory deeply etched in our law is that a free society prefers to punish the few who abuse the rights of free speech after they break the law rather than to throttle them and all others beforehand.

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Popular Authors

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