re: The last page of Justice Thomas' opinion on the Affirmative Action Case

The ethnic cleansing and genocide of Native Americans, particularly the Five Civilized Tribes is the greatest atrocity committed by this country. It’s not debatable. Slavery was an institution dating back to the beginning of human history. It is wrong but it brought those people here and was not necessarily a death sentence or even a terrible existence. The bigger atrocities committed against African Americans have been in the form of the cultural warfare and sabotage waged by those in power.

As for the opinion on the “greatest failure” of our country, it’s none of the above. Our greatest failure as a country is the failure to defend liberty. State’s Rights were critical to the success of our country and to upholding the constitution. The outcome of the civil war has led to an ever increasing expansion of the federal government that has led to governmental overreach, a loss of freedom, and the ability for us to govern ourselves in an effective manner. While our tyrants might only be 1,500 miles away instead of 3,000, they are tyrants nonetheless. We(the majority of Americans not living in the northeast or west coast) are in the same boat as the colonies, our governance being dictated by a couple of large populations with drastically different values. This will be our undoing.