Here’s the biggest thing standing between Donald Trump and his wall – ThinkProgress

Here’s the biggest thing standing between Donald Trump and his wall – ThinkProgress
by Ian Millhiser

The Fountainhead

There is an annual tradition in Justice Thomas’ household. Every summer he invites his four law clerks to his home to watch the 1949 film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. It is, at once, a tribute to Thomas’ self-image as a man who “stood alone against the men of his time,” and a celebration of Thomas’ libertarian economic values.

There’s little question what Ayn Rand would have thought about a president who orders the military to take land from private citizens. Indeed, the idea that an American president would give such an order seems so ridiculous on its face that it’s easy to imagine such an order providing the central conflict of an entire Ayn Rand novel.

The question, if a real life villain gives such an order, is what set of values the Supreme Court will bring to the table. Recent history suggests that the Court’s conservatives will look the other way. Inter arma enim silent leges.