(None of the following is a direct quote.)
It started with me saying the following:
"My US History class really buried the lede on Barry Goldwater, today. It had two paragraphs about him, and one sentence halfway through the second paragraph said "Also, he opposed changes to civil rights law." Which is kind of ridiculous. Firstly, "opposed changes to civil rights law" is kind of masking the fact that in this context, "opposing changes to civil rights law" means opposing the advancement of civil rights because the only changes that were happening at the time were securing more civil rights. Secondly, to say "Also," as if it were just a little side project of his is misleading, his entire platform was opposing the advancement of civil rights under the euphemism of 'states' rights.'"
To which my dad said:
"Wait, so you think he didn't believe in states' rights? Or at least, that he didn't believe in states' rights to make their own legislation on civil rights? If, say, New York were to pass civil rights protections that the South wouldn't have liked, he would have doubled back on that and forced New York to abandon them?"
I responded:
"In his presidency? Not necessarily. But as a broader project of the right wing? Yes, absolutely. Maybe it'd be the next president that did it, but it would happen to some extent, eventually."
He said:
"What reason do you have to think that?"
And here is where I made an assertion that people on the center-right like my dad don't tend to take very well:
"One of the core projects of the American right, throughout history, has been opposing the expansion of civil rights. During the Civil Rights movement, they were focused on opposing it. Before that, they were fighting the Civil War to protect slavery. Before that, they were pro-slavery and, coincidentally, also using 'states' rights' as a euphemism for it. And even now, they are seemingly still trying to roll back civil rights protections, since Clarence Thomas insinuated he wanted to revisit Loving v. Virginia, the case that banned anti-miscegenation laws. An object in motion stays in motion, why should I think that it had magically stopped when Goldwater said 'states' rights?'"
Surprisingly, my dad didn't actually object directly to my thesis, that one of the core projects of the American right is opposing the expansion of civil rights. He did, however, object to my supporting argument: that Clarence Thomas insinuated he wanted to revisit Loving v. Virginia.
We then began a joint research rabbit hole, concluding that he had not said so directly, but that he had declared the premise on which Loving v. Virginia was decided (substantive due process) was inconsistent with appropriate constitutional interpretation, and thus Loving V. Virginia is implied in the list of cases he explicitly cited as needing re-visitation.
My dad took this to mean that he wanted to revisit these cases such that their rulings may be upheld on firmer ground, particularly because Clarence Thomas is a black man married to a white woman. This interpretation is naive at best, there is a long history of people throwing marginalized groups to which they belong under the bus in pursuit of short-term personal benefit (See: Ernest Röhm). In Thomas' case, perhaps the numerous gifts and favors he and his wife and relatives have been receiving for a very long time, the givers of which he has overwhelmingly voted in line with the goals of?
But that's not the point. The point is, as is ever increasingly apparent: my dad and I believe fundamentally different things. My dad believes that executing the ostensible duty (accurate interpretation of the constitution) of the office of Supreme Court Justice is good. I believe the opposite, to accurately interpret the constitution is a moral failure. Because the constitution can serve as a logical basis to deny the protection and advancement of civil rights, it is bad. The government it creates has failed to rectify this, and therefore it is bad, too. As such, anyone who finds themself a Supreme Court Justice ought to interpret the constitution in such a way that protects and expands as many civil rights as possible, for as long as possible, until the whole apparatus can be done away with. Accurate interpretation of the constitution can only create consistency, and consistency is morally neutral.
I don't know where I'm going with this, and I've spent a lot of time writing it that I ought to have spent working on graduating high school. Go watch Always a Bigger Fish or something, that video is probably my conclusion.
