@Smokin Joe
I STRONGLY disagree with the part I highlighted in bold. There are damn few people of ANY race who have the determination,the drive,and the intelligence to achieve what he has achieved.
Race has/had nothing to do with it. It was all about having the good luck to have been born VERY determined as well as VERY intelligent,and then have the drive to suceed where damn few have even dared to venture.
Being black was no real handicap to him because it was irrelevant. And REMAINS irrelevant, despite the best efforts of the left to try to denigrate his accomplishments.
Thomas is NOT a symbol of success for intelligent black youth to follow,he is a symbol for EVERYONE to follow that has that level of ability and drive.
What's the difference between a genius on skid row and one in a penthouse?
Grit and determination. I'm not saying Clarence Thomas's skin color has anything to do with his accomplishments, quite the opposite. He IS a very intelligent man who has applied himself. Reread the part you put in bold and there is a word there, Pete:
"IF".
I'm not saying everyone on the Democrat Plantation is of the raw ability Clarence Thomas is, far from that, but within their capabilities grit and determination will determine whether they remain a slug on the dole, or whether they accomplish things well beyond their peers.
What the Democrats have fits about, the reason for the vitriol, is that Clarence Thomas has achieved without any of the nonsense they insist he could not have achieved anything without.
While the Leftists and their race hustlers tell the black population (and other minorities, except the Asians who generally have the grit and determination to succeed) that they are being held down, or held back, and it's all someone else's fault they aren't prosperous, Clarence Thomas is the person who absolutely proves them wrong.
Dear God, Pete, if that idea caught on, that people don't need the micromanagement of the Democrats and all the handouts to be successful, then buying votes with handouts wouldn't mean shit--and that would cost the Left all its power base.
Some ideas can't be tolerated by the Left if they are to remain in power, as much as they are, and THAT is one that absolutely cannot be allowed to catch on, or the Democrats lose their victim base and everyone walks off the Plantation. That, in a nutshell, is why the Democrats hate him, not just because he is an originalist when it comes to Constitutional interpretation.
For that matter, any person who could be lumped into a minority group who is a conservative is a threat to the Left. Anyone who believes that merit should be a basis for success is anathema to them,
I'm not minimizing Justice Thomas' accomplishments,here, he has my utmost and abiding respect. By the time i hold anyone in that regard, their race is irrelevant, at least to me--not that I worry much about that among the people I know,because I have only met three kinds of people in my lifetime: solid folks you can count on, people I'd rather not know, and folks I don't know well enough to say. They come in all sizes, shapes, and colors.
I'm saying the reason the Left hates him is that he proves their bullshit about Conservatives holding anyone down to be just that. It's the Leftists who fill young minds with crap about how they can never amount to anything and need the Leftists to provide for them, when Thomas is a shining example of just how untrue that is.
So the Left has to make it look like he somehow unfairly accomplished all he has, so they can keep the Plantation going.
