Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas warned against the dangers of progressivism during a speech at the University of Texas at Austin.
Discussing the nation’s foundational values in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary, Thomas said, “I think if we don’t stand up and take ownership of our country, and take responsibility for it, we are slowly letting others control how we think and what we think.”
Detailing the threat of progressivism to the nation’s values, Thomas said, “Since Wilson’s presidency, progressivism has made many inroads into our system of government and our way of life. It has coexisted uneasily with the principles of the Declaration, because it is opposed to those principles, it is not possible for the two to coexist forever.”
“Progressivism was not native to America. Wilson and the progressives candidly admitted that they took it from Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, whose state-centric society they admired,” he continued. “Progressives like Wilson argued that America needed to leave behind the principles of the founding and catch up with the more advanced and sophisticated system of relatively unimpeded state power, nearly perfect, perfected.”
“Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and hence our form of government,” he added. “It holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God, but from the government. It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.”
Thomas went on to note that the “century of progressivism did not go well,” detailing that “Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Mao all were intertwined with the rise of progressivism, and all were opposed to the natural rights on which our declarations are based.”
The Supreme Court justice shifted his speech to encourage the audience to stand up for the principles upon which the United States was founded. “These are the choices that we will confront, that will confront you, and you must decide whether to respond with timidity or with courage as the signers of the Declaration did. It will, of course, not be easy. It never is,” he said. “But if, like me, you need a greater source of strength than yourselves, you will need to rely on your faith to guide and to sustain you through it all.”
