Educating the Political Right

Here is an interesting post on the SteveAudio blog pointing out a possibly "teachable moment" for one of the hard right wing justices on the US Supreme Court:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had a reality check today:

A nephew of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suffered a seizure after he was beaten and shocked during a scuffle with security guards at a New Orleans area hospital, relatives alleged Friday.

Derek Thomas, 25, was immobilized with a stun gun Thursday after he tried to leave the emergency room at West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, La., his sister told WDSU, a local television station. Security responded after Thomas refused a doctor's request to put on a hospital gown and started to leave, Kimberly Thomas said.

While this action by the security guards is deplorable, maybe this is a teachable moment for Justice Thomas, who once found such thuggish behavior less than awful:

Back in 1992, just after joining the court, Thomas dissented in the 7-2 decision that upheld a $800 award for damages for a Louisiana inmate who, from behind his locked cell, argued with a prison guard. Three guards took the inmate out of his cell, put him in handcuffs and shackles, and dragged him to a hallway where they beat him so badly that he suffered a cracked dental plate.

The lower court ruled that the beating had nothing to do with acceptable prison discipline. But Thomas all but laughed off the beating, saying the injuries were "minor." Thomas said the "use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be tortious, it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution, but it is not `cruel and unusual punishment.'"

Perspective, dude.

Go read the whole post. It has details about the discrimination of Justice Thomas's sisters compared to the privileges he enjoyed and how he is deaf and blind to these hard facts. He has no empathy.

I'm always appalled at the willful indifference of the rich, especially the ideologically right wing elite, to the suffering of those at the bottom end of society. The rationalizations and cold indifference are astounding. I can understand indifference based on pecuniary need (i.e. the famous quote of Upton Sinclair "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."). But I don't understand the privileged -- the idle rich who have vast resources -- who insist on stiff arming those in need or suffering injustice. That is simply adding insult to injury.