I'm confused by Clarence Thomas's assertion that the Supreme Court should not be guided by precedence that doesn't respect the legal traditions. Exactly what are legal traditions if not precedence?
This is the conservative supermajority rationalizing their judicial activism in shaping US law according to their ideological opinions. There is no tradition or precedent that supports them, so they simply do whatever the fuck they want.
Sotomayor is right to warn...
You're right, you don't understand it :)
But I can help.
Thomas is just referring to a longstanding part of constitutional interpretation that says to look at different sources including text, intention, and tradition, with tradition being one, but only one, of the factors.
Thomas was saying that the precedent was never valid since it wasn't founded on preexisting tradition. The precedent was therefore always arbitrary, a previous court doing whatever the fuck they want.
To be clear: this isn't some post-hoc rationalization. It's a longstanding and common approach to the task.
