In a speech last week at the University of Texas at Austin's event marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said that "progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government."
"It holds that our rights, that our dignities come not from God, but from government," Thomas said in his special lecture. "You will not be surprised to learn that the progressives had a great deal of contempt for us, the American people."
Legal expert and radio host Jenna Ellis agrees.
"Justice Thomas was absolutely right to focus on the worldview and the ideas that are fundamentally un-American that have crept into our American way of thinking and that are fundamentally inconsistent and incompatible with the premise that our nation was founded upon, which is in the Declaration of Independence," she submits.
American Family Association (AFA) General Counsel Abraham Hamilton III has made many of the same remarks.
"He begins his speech by saying the Constitution is the means of the United States government, but it is the Declaration that announces the end of our government," Hamilton said on his radio program Friday. "That is very similar to what I often say: The mission and vision statement of our nation is the Declaration; the Constitution is the implementation vehicle."
Thomas went on to take issue with President Woodrow Wilson, citing him as a big supporter of progressivism and an advocate for "progressive rejection" of the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton, who often refers to progressivism as "regressivism," agreed with that also.
"He's saying you've got to pick. You will either have regressivism, or you'll have our Declaration of Independence," Hamilton summarized. "You can't have both."
Ellis believes the Declaration of Independence is the worldview statement of America's founders.
"They recognized that truth is, it's self-evident, that morality exists, that it is implicit in a moral and upright society, and that true legitimacy for civil government comes from God, our creator," Ellis explains. "It's not just a social contract or social compact."
She thinks Justice Thomas did a good job of relaying that and showing how progressivism and the notion of a secular state devoid of objective truth is "completely antithetical to the fundamental premise that America was founded upon" in the 18th century.
"On our 250th anniversary, we have to get back to our nation's founding if we truly want to continue to build a more perfect union and actually embrace and protect the values and the foundation of what at the inception truly made America great," Ellis says.
Editor's Note: The American Family Association is the parent organization of the American Family News Network, which operates AFN.net.
