Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech Thursday on the University of Texas at Austin attacking progressivism because the enemy of all that America stands for — or at the very least what he believes it ought to face for. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” he mentioned, as a result of “it holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government.”
It’s not a brand new concept, particularly in Republican circles. In 2012, for example, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan thundered, in response to Barack Obama’s supposedly tyrannical rule, that “even Presidents need reminding that our rights come from nature and God, and not from government!” But whereas Thomas might solid himself because the truest defender of the American system, what he truly revealed was his contempt for the foundations of our democracy — one that’s all too frequent amongst conservatives right now.
The concept that rights come from God, not authorities, couldn’t be extra unsuitable. And as somebody who routinely wields the facility of presidency to deprive Americans of their rights, Thomas should know.
Thomas by no means asks why, if God is so intent on offering all of us with these political rights, he took so lengthy to supply them to nearly anybody.
Thomas started his speech by citing Thomas Jefferson’s line within the Declaration of Independence asserting that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Deploying the essay-writing method acquainted to mediocre middle-school college students in all places, he added, “The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language defines self-evident as obviously true and requiring no proof, argument, or explanation.” (Fortunately, he declined to finish his speech with “In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts.”)
As proof, Thomas provided his personal historical past rising up within the Jim Crow South. “When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments nearest to you enforced laws and customs that promoted unequal treatment,” he mentioned, “it was obvious that your rights or your dignity did not come from those governments, but rather from God.”
So who was it who delivered the nation from the cruelty and injustice of Jim Crow? It was not a divine mild of heaven sweeping throughout the land. It was authorities — or extra particularly, democratic residents who labored tirelessly to alter the legal guidelines, and ultimately compelled these with energy within the courts, legislatures and the manager department to hitch their trigger.
And it’s the legal guidelines handed and enforced by the federal government that assure these rights. To repeat, Thomas is aware of this completely effectively, since he and his conservative colleagues on the excessive courtroom are in the process of destroying one of many key pillars of that effort, the Voting Rights Act.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and writer targeted on politics and tradition.
