There are many many things to like about Justice Clarence Thomas, but his moving words about not presuming to tell ordinary citizens about their choices on keeping themselves safe is high on the list.

I suspect there is no daylight between Justice Thomas and this statement: "The well-heeled can wax eloquently about giving thugs fourth chances from the safety of their safe neighborhoods, gated communities, and sophisticated security systems. Regular folks need to take a more practical view of human nature."

We are truly lucky to have a man of such humility and wisdom on the Supreme Court. Bush 41 hit a grand slam with that pick.

Here is a quote that apotheosizes Thomas' wisdom (and restraint):

"We owe victims more than this sort of pseudoscientific assessment of their lives. It is bad enough to tell a mother that her child's murder is not 'worthy' of society's ultimate expression of moral condemnation. But to do so based on cardboard stereotypes or cold mathematical calculations is beyond my comprehension. In my decades on the Court, I have not seen a capital crime that could not be considered sufficiently 'blameworthy' to merit a death sentence (even when genuine constitutional errors justified a vacatur of that sentence)."

If Antonin Scalia was the intellectual leader of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas is the moral one.