My good friend Justice Clarence Thomas delivered an extraordinary and historic speech at the University of Texas recently. His remarks appropriately focused on the importance of the Declaration of Independence and its relevance to our nation as we celebrate our 250th birthday.
Justice Thomas chose the speech to deliver a stark warning about the threat posed by left-wing progressive ideology. He spoke with clarity and bluntness, warning the audience that modern progressivism is incompatible with our Declaration of Independence. He said the two simply cannot coexist side-by-side. Only one can prevail. He knew there would be “blowback” from the powerful forces trying to remake America.
The second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence contains America’s core founding principle:
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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.1
Thomas explained why this founding principle of America is in danger from leftist ideology. He said:
Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government. 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.2
In other words, our rights come from God, and government exists to secure those rights.
Progressivism is incompatible with that foundational idea of America because to progressives, government is God. Progressives believe that government knows best how to run our lives—they just want us to give them the power to do so.
This is not just a debate for law professors and constitutional scholars. Virtually every cause that Dr. James Dobson devoted his life to, and that our team at JDFI continues to fight for, relies on America remaining one nation under God.
Does God give us our children to raise, or is big government in charge of raising them? Should families teach children morally-based sex education, or do government teachers have the right to expose our children to value-free graphic sexual information? Is a baby in the womb a human being made in God’s image and protected by law? We say yes!
The progressive left says the baby has no rights and can be thrown away like a Styrofoam cup. Was America built on religious liberty or not? The ideological left says our religious liberty is secondary to LGBTQ+ “rights.”
Justice Thomas noted, historically, that the progressive movements of Europe led to the rise of fascism and Nazism, which literally means “national socialism.” Karl Marx was a leftist ideologue. His ideas were the root of Godless communism.
Historically, “progressive” governments ultimately murdered millions of people in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Communist China because they had no respect for the rights of individuals and the God-given dignity and worth of every person.
Justice Thomas believes that America is in the middle of an existential moment. We had such a moment leading up to the American Revolution, when our Founding Fathers decided that a new nation should be built on the idea of God-given rights.
Another existential era was the Civil War. Could one man own another? Of course not! Slavery was a violation of God’s law and of our Declaration of Independence, which states: “All men are created equal.”3
Throughout my entire career, including my presidential campaign, I have repeatedly warned that the founding principles of the Declaration’s second paragraph are not taught in our public schools. This is because progressive teachers and their unions simply don’t believe those principles.
The ideological left are moral relativists. They do not believe there is such a thing as universal “truth.” They do not believe in our Creator, the God of the Bible. They do not believe in the right to life. And their idea of “liberty” and “happiness” is licentiousness and decadence instead of “ordered liberty under God.”
Only one side will prevail in this great battle for America. The outcome is in doubt.
Justice Thomas urged Americans to “find in ourselves that same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration had”4 to defend our freedom and not become slaves of the neo-Marxism sweeping our nation.
JDFI is here to stand with you in this struggle.
- Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.
- Clarence Thomas, remarks at the University of Texas at Austin Law School, April 15, 2026, video, RealClearPolitics, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/04/16/justice-clarence-thomas-progressivism-seeks-to-replace-the-basic-premises-of-our-form-of-government.html
- Continental Congress, Declaration of Independence.
- Thomas, remarks at University of Texas at Austin Law School.
