Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave a speech Thursday at the University of Texas at Austin attacking progressivism as the enemy of all that America stands for — or at least what he believes it ought to stand for. “Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government,” he said, because “it holds that our rights and our dignities come not from God but from government.”
It’s not a new idea, especially in Republican circles. In 2012, for instance, 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 while Thomas may cast himself as the truest defender of the American system, what he actually revealed was his contempt for the foundations of our democracy — one that is all too common among conservatives today.
The idea that rights come from God, not government, couldn’t be more wrong. And as someone who routinely wields the power of government to deprive Americans of their rights, Thomas ought to know.
Thomas never asks why, if God is so intent on providing all of us with these political rights, he took so long to offer them to almost anyone.
Thomas began his speech by citing Thomas Jefferson’s line in 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 technique familiar to mediocre middle-school students everywhere, 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 end his speech with “In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts.”)
As proof, Thomas offered his own history growing up in 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 said, “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 light of heaven sweeping across the land. It was government — or more specifically, democratic citizens who worked tirelessly to change the laws, and eventually forced those with power in the courts, legislatures and the executive branch to join their cause.
And it’s the laws passed and enforced by the government that guarantee those rights. To repeat, Thomas knows this perfectly well, since he and his conservative colleagues on the high court are in the process of destroying one of the key pillars of that effort, the Voting Rights Act.
Thomas never asks why, if God is so intent on providing all of us with these political rights, he took so long to offer them to almost anyone. Few citizens anywhere were guaranteed their supposedly God-given rights until a mere 250 years ago (and even then, it would be almost 200 years more before they were truly available to all Americans). God decided to allow thousands of generations of human beings to live from birth to death with no political rights, subject to the whims of kings, warlords and potentates — and yes, religious leaders, whose history of sins against fundamental rights is long and bloody.
Whatever support one might find in a selective reading of scripture for ideas such as universal equality (and one does have to cherry-pick rather aggressively), it wasn’t until the Framers created a government capable of guaranteeing those rights that they eventually became real. The people Thomas Jefferson enslaved may have taken inspiration from his words, but God did not deliver them the rights their master found so vital.
And critically, rights are more than vague notions about “equality” or “dignity.” Rights are specific and procedural, or else they are meaningless. God does not grant you the right to equal protection under law, or a fair trial if you are accused of a crime or the freedom of speech; it’s government that does that. Indeed, freedom of religion itself existed almost nowhere until the Constitution — a plan for government — created it. Even today, it is absent in many places, God’s supposed wishes notwithstanding.
Listening to Thomas’ speech, one can’t help but notice it comes at a moment when not only does his Republican Party hold a grip on national power, but the Trump administration he has done so much to support has brought to our government an aggressive and exclusionary Christian nationalism. The secretary of defense tells Americans to pray for the troops “in the name of Jesus Christ,” the secretary of agriculture sends an all-staff email on Easter saying “He is Risen indeed,” and the president posts an image to social media portraying himself as Jesus, while anyone not a conservative evangelical is left to wonder if this government represents them.
Americans know that when their rights are being trampled on, it is not God who will come to their rescue. Only government can do that — and it only does so when we as citizens demand it and have the power to ensure it.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture.