What Clarence Thomas doesn’t understand about democracy

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 not less than 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 thought, particularly in Republican circles. In 2012, for example, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan thunderedin 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 really revealed was his contempt for the foundations of our democracy — one that’s all too frequent amongst conservatives at this time.

The concept that rights come from God, not authorities, could not be extra improper. And as somebody who routinely wields the facility of presidency to deprive Americans of their rights, Thomas must know.

Thomas started his speech by quoting 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 approach 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 supplied his personal historical past rising up within the Jim Crow South. “When you lived in a segregated world with palpable discrimination and the governments closest 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 vary the legal guidelines, and finally pressured these with energy within the courts, legislatures and the manager department to hitch their trigger.

And it is the legal guidelines handed and enforced by the federal government that assure these rights. To repeat, Thomas is aware of this completely properly, 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.