Americans would be naïve to expect an end to the smearing of Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife—a persistent fetish of the Washington elite and its propaganda media for over 30 years. Since they can’t get Thomas to dance to their tune, they keep ramping up the high-tech lynchings in their putrid swamp. (Of course they’ll go after other conservative officials too, but Thomas is the biggest prize.)
However, their never-ending demonization campaign is just the tip of the iceberg. The war on the Thomas family reveals a much deeper conflict against independent thought and friendship.
Thomas possesses an independent mind and a wealth of friends. And that’s his original sin in the eyes of his self-appointed overlords.
The ProPublica Hit Job is Beside the Point
One recent assault on the Thomases comes from a group of arrogant, leftist white men over at ProPublica, who absurdly lecture conservatives on ethics. While they hold Justice Thomas to a far higher standard than any non-conservative public official, the best they can come up with is that he accepted the hospitality of a long-time friend named Harlan Crow who happens to have a lot of money, as well as a yacht and a plane and nice places to stay for a week. (Ooh!)
Not only does Crow have zero business related to high-court matters, but when it comes to abortion—the Left’s most sacred cow of all—Crow identifies as pro-choice. Go figure. But all of this is beside the point. You can read plenty of actual analyses of the ProPublica smear, all of which conclude it’s a politically motivated hit job. There are no ethics violations. Just left-wing cherry-picking and conjured innuendo by these self-declared “experts.”
The point is not that Justice Thomas might have some rich friends. After all, elitist Democrats operate as a multimillionaire/billionaire club due to their influence and their many “friends” in high places.
No, they believe the Thomases should not have any friends at all. It’s not just the Left’s extreme animus that clarifies this point. We can see it as a social control motive in line with all “progressive” agendas. We can see it in their eagerness to regulate social interactions, particularly associations with people who have conservative ideas not authorized by the elites.
What Is Friendship?
Friendship is becoming a rare commodity in our emerging dystopia. The loneliness epidemic loudly attests to this fact. There is an ongoing war on friendship, just as there is a war on the family. The attacks on the Thomases reflect both. If you haven’t noticed how the agitprop media tries to get at Justice Thomas through constant attacks on his wife Virginia, then you aren’t paying attention.
But what exactly is a friend? That would be a person with whom you can feel happiness, with whom you can relax and have a real conversation. And yes, a friend is someone you can trust, someone you can confide in, someone who will mourn with you, who understands you. There is good cheer in real friendship. Loyalty is a must. Friends are meant to be loved, and never to be used as commodities.
Too few people seem to have this understanding of friendship anymore. They will use people, all the while calling them friends. They will quickly dispose of them over a disagreement, or badger them to capitulate or do something against their better judgment. That’s not friendship. That’s coercion and emotional extortion.
And yet using people as commodities seems to be the left-wing understanding of friendship.
With Friends Like Juan Williams . . .
Fox News analyst Juan Williams displayed this hideous attitude in a recent column at The Hill, headlined: “I consider Clarence Thomas a friend, and I’m shocked by recent reports.”
The piece is a display of classic kiss-of-Judas deceit. Williams concocts the idea that the “information” in ProPublica “smells” like there has been financial impropriety on Thomas’ part. He tries to lure the reader into accepting the allegations as a conviction: “we can’t get away from wondering,” he urges.
The column looks like it was coordinated as an addendum to the pile of made-up horse sewage from the ProPublica piece. In short order, Williams claims Thomas’ rulings are “in line” with Crow’s. (If so, so what? And yet, they do not align on abortion?); that Crow, the white guy, has “fenced in” Thomas with his generosity, surrounding him with conservatives; that Thomas has brought disgrace on the Supreme Court; and that Thomas “has avoided being punished for bringing disgrace on himself.” Some friend.
Williams further insinuates that Thomas’ friendship with Crow means that the Supreme Court is becoming “a gated community, limited to the opinions of rich people and their powerful minions.” It’s sickening stuff. And all obvious lies. Near the end of this grotesque flogging, Williams has the nerve to praise Thomas and pretend he’s his “friend.” Thomas came to Williams’ birthday party, see. He was “always gracious” to Williams’ children. He can quote Malcolm X at length. And so Williams is offering his opinion—to the world—as Thomas’ “friend.”
Are you nauseous yet? You should be. If anything exudes an offensive odor, it’s the stench of a “friend’s” betrayal on obviously trumped up charges, especially by a smelly digital fish-wrap that calls itself ProPublica. Williams is using his connection with Thomas for the express purpose of humiliating and slandering him. This is beyond indecent for anyone who deigns to call himself a “friend.”
Perhaps Williams feels he has never done appropriate penance to his left-wing associates for defending Thomas as they persecuted him during the 1991 confirmation hearings.
That’s just speculation on my part, of course. But it’s nowhere near as far-fetched as Williams’ claim that Thomas’ decisions are motivated by a desire for revenge. This is astonishing to me, because it indicates that Williams—and others who share his take—cannot even grasp the concept of independent thought.
Is Friendship Possible Without Freedom?
The second front in the demonization campaign against Clarence Thomas is the never-ending war against independent thought. Aversion to clarity of thought is key to every totalitarian’s urge for social control, and it’s directly related to the war on friendship.
If you can’t speak openly to people, you can’t get to know them. Social cohesion becomes very difficult. A real friend is someone to whom you can express your feelings. In a real friendship, no one controls your conversation.
And that’s the rub as far as the tyrant is concerned. “What feelings?” he demands to know. “What was the nature of your conversation?” “Might you have been influenced?”
Of course, the possibility of influence is always possible through natural conversation. That’s why social engineers seek to regulate all social interactions through censorship and a social credit system that enforces our compliance.
Another weird slander in Williams’ attack on Thomas is the implication that Thomas is a “minion” of Crow’s who does Crow’s bidding in his decisions. I suppose this is just a way of getting around the obvious reason for attacking Thomas, which Thomas himself presciently explained over 30 years ago: They see him as “an uppity black who deigns to think for himself.”
So what will it be, Juan? Should Thomas be influenced by “friends” like you? Or should he be put in some sort of solitary confinement to cure him of his “unyielding loyalty to a hardline Republican agenda”? And what about the rest of us conservatives? Should we all live in a state of isolation and have our “friends” assigned to us by the Left? Has the time finally come for you to cure us of our quaint constitutional notions of freedom of speech and association?
Ultimately, this is a much bigger war than we realize. Demonization of the Thomases is a high-profile battle, but it reflects a deeper conflict—a war against friendship and against independent thought. It is actually a prelude to atomizing all of us, and threatening us with social isolation if we don’t adopt the Left’s anti-thought and dehumanizing agendas.