Justice Thomas addresses the progressive attack on America’s freedom

April 21, 2026

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1990. And, on July 1, 1991, Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court of the United States, and he was confirmed by the Senate on October 15, 1991.

Prior to that he earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1974 from Yale Law School. He was an assistant attorney general in Missouri, served as legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John Danforth, was Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

He is the longest-serving justice since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. And, since the death of former Justice Antonin Scalia, he is the Court's foremost originalist.

Originalist’s sensible approach is that the laws and the U.S. Constitution must be understood in terms of what they meant when they were enacted, not some modern interpretation that ignores their original meaning and purpose, and instead is interpreted as if the law or Constitution was just enacted.

Thomas, therefore, is a “judicial conservative,” which is not a political conservative, but one who adheres to the original meaning of laws and the Constitution, rather than applying liberal thinking to the process, which means a law or the Constitution can mean different things at different times.

Speaking last week at the University of Texas Austin School of Law, Thomas addressed what he identified as a critique of modern political trends. He said that America’s founding principles are under attack from ideological shifts in academia and government.

The values that are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence have “fallen out of favor,” and are under assault by progressives. "Progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government," Thomas told the audience. This movement rejects the idea that rights come from God and instead places complete authority in government institutions, Thomas said.

Our founding documents assert the concept that all people are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights. The definition of unalienable (or inalienable) is that rights are fundamental, inherent entitlements that cannot be taken away, sold, or transferred, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

And, Thomas noted that the Constitution was designed to limit government power, and to acknowledge and protect our liberties.

These documents protected Americans from centralized government authority and the majority controlling the minority. He cited principles — such as separation of powers and federalism — as safeguards against centralized authority and majority overreach, which are characteristics of many less-free nations.

History, he said, offers many lessons on the dangers of abandoning natural rights, where strong governments have suppressed those rights. Again, he noted that our system was intentionally designed to prevent this by restraining the government and empowering the citizenry.

But progressivism prefers the government to control everything, even the individual freedoms that the Constitution guarantees us, destroying those freedoms.

And history, Thomas said, is rife with examples of powerful governments suppressing individual freedoms, and the terrible results that followed.

He traces the roots of progressivism back about a hundred years, to early 20th-century, where figures such as President Woodrow Wilson advocated for a larger and more powerful federal government, drawing his inspiration from what had occurred in European nations.

Wilson also said that the Constitution should be read in light of changing conditions. But that is wrong. The Constitution must be read and understood as when it was first created. If changes are deserved, then they can be made through the established process, not simply by current justices who don’t like them, or don’t understand them, simply pretending they don’t exist.

And that also holds true for fundamental principles. Those principles cannot simply be ignored. They have been firmly established through due process. If there is good reason and ample support for changing them, then go through the established process to change them.

During this troubled time of the worst political division in decades, Thomas asked all Americans to rediscover the courage and conviction that our Founders possessed. "In my view, we must find in ourselves that same level of courage that the signers of the Declaration had so that we can do for our future what they did for theirs," he said.

That future has lasted in pretty stable form for nearly 250 years. But it has serious problems today, presented by those who do not understand our system, or who do not appreciate it.

It is interesting that as a unique system of government that has proven its worth for two and a half centuries, so many of those who live in this country and benefit from it, want to change it to something that has been proven to be a failed system over those same 250 years.

If the progressives are successful in their effort to subvert our constitutional republic, they may not live long enough to suffer the consequences of that subversion, as it will take some time to totally ruin the country. But their children and grandchildren most certainly will.

America’s future is threatened by those who want to change everything

April 9, 2024

The future of the United States of America may be less secure than at any time since its inception. The country that has provided so much for so long, and has set a standard that no other country in the world has ever matched, is now seen by a large faction as no longer good enough.

What made America so great? Many things. A tripartite government with no single branch more powerful than the others. Each branch has the ability to respond to the actions of the other branches in our system of checks and balances. 

We don’t have a ruler; no king/queen, emperor or czar. Our leaders are our employees — they work for us! And the President, Vice President and members of Congress are selected at the ballot box by the eligible voters, who choose from candidates that they have participated in choosing. Judges and Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President and approved by the Congress, and others are simply hired as employees.

Our system provides vast amounts of personal freedom, with a Bill of Rights that guarantees us the freedom for important things, like speech, the press, religion, peaceable assembly, redress of grievances, security in our homes, fairness in legal matters, national defense.

So long as what we do does not violate a constitutional principal or sensible laws, we may do as we please. We can buy whatever house, car, appliances, clothing, entertainment, or personal items we choose.

Our Constitution provided the greatest degree of personal freedom in the history of human beings, but it is being replaced by restrictions on virtually every conceivable area of life. This is not new, of course, but has taken a dose of amphetamines in recent years.

Personal freedom, once a hallmark of the nation, is seen by this dissatisfied faction as a threat to the future. And the secret to a positive future in the mind of these people is a life that is much more controlled, with the bureaucracy having much more authority over the people.

Many restrictions exist on what we can and cannot do with our property, what kinds of things we can and cannot purchase. We are told there are legitimate reasons for these limitations. that is true, up to a point. But the number of federal, state and local regulations is huge, and cumbersome.

And many of the regulations are made by unelected bureaucrats, and are not approved by Congress, but nonetheless have the force of law.

The Code of Federal Regulation has 50 subsections where the government has seen fit to issue regulations that control what we can do, and how it must be done. One example of this was discussed by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on its website.

A NAM survey last summer found that “U.S. manufacturers’ concerns over federal regulations have reached a six-year high as nearly 100 new major regulations — from 30 federal agencies and offices — threaten jobs and investment.”

Ohio Manufacturers’ Association President Ryan Augsburger noted that “In the next year, the Biden administration plans to issue even more regulations — approximately 3,200, including about 280 ‘major rules’ and 1,326 ‘significant rules.’”

Augsburger wrote that “More than 63 percent of manufacturers are spending more than 2,000 hours per year complying with federal regulations, diverting resources that would otherwise go towards employee compensation, new hires and additional investment in U.S. facilities,” citing the NAM’s Q2 2023 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey.

He then listed examples of the cost of these burdensome regulations:

** The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed particulate matter rule, which is expected to cost “up to $197.4 billion in U.S. economic activity and endanger as many as 973,900 current U.S. jobs”;

** The Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate-disclosure requirement, which the NAM recently advocated against in testimony before the House; and

** The Federal Trade Commission’s proposal to ban noncompete agreements, which 70 percent of manufacturers use to safeguard their intellectual property.

Negative consequences such as these are not limited to manufacturing; they occur in virtually every area of work.

Our government is too big, too controlling and spends too much. Our national debt is $34.6 trillion. That comes to just under $103,000 for every person in the country.

Is it possible that this large faction of Americans desiring to impose restrictions on our freedoms actually has a plan for a better country in mind? Well, yes, they have a plan. But it is not a plan to make America better. 

Their plan is for a larger, more restrictive government, and much less personal freedom for the people. It is very much opposed to the concept that our Founders had in mind, and for which they created our governmental system. They and their plan are un-American and anti-American.

This continued degradation of the brilliant system we inherited must be reversed, or before much longer America as it was designed will no longer exist. Our freedoms must be restored and protected. And our government must be returned to its intended limited status.

The United States is being torn apart … from the inside!

The good news is that there is a large, strong faction of Americans that recognizes the superior nature of our republic’s original and unique design that is fighting to keep it intact.

But there is another faction that is working to disassemble the republic, and turn it into a totally different nation. Some in that faction are doing this deliberately, while others may not even realize that what they are doing will negatively affect the country.

No nation ever was or ever will be perfect, and the United States isn’t perfect. But a major transformation would be magnificently foolish. The United States must simply work to continue to improve itself, and watch for and combat efforts at fundamental change. One such problem is the education system.

A new report on the state of public education shows that schools are performing poorly on basic educational goals. The results of testing on a representative sample of 42,700 eighth grade students from nearly 800 schools in 2018 showed that students are deficient in learning U.S. history, civics and geography.

Test scores in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for geography and U.S. history declined, and civics scores are unchanged from the last test in 2014.

Only 25 percent were “proficient” in geography. In civics, only 24 percent performed at or above the “proficient” level. And worse, only 15 percent scored “proficient” or above in U.S. history. At least 25 percent of the entire group are classified by the NAEP as “below basic” in all three testing areas, and have an inadequate level of understanding of civics, historical issues, and geography.

These kids have a generally poor understanding of their country, how and why it is designed as it is, and why that is important. They are therefore ripe for political indoctrination.

Columnist Michael Barone recently discussed the sad state of affairs among giant Internet companies that want to censor “inappropriate” speech.

Two law professors, of all people, say controlling speech on Internet platforms is necessary. Jack Goldsmith from Harvard University, and Keane Woods from the University of Arizona, writing in The Atlantic, stated the following: "Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society's norms and values."

So, in the age of the Internet the First Amendment is no longer important. And if free speech is suspended by online platforms in order to be “compatible with a society's norms and values," how long before that dark cloud of censorship covers all speech in America?

The “old ways” are under attack. Because something was utilized a century ago, it is considered invalid because of its age and the current social climate. Under such a system, nothing can be thought of as eternally good, or even eternally bad.

What was accepted as good in the 1800s is useless today. What we replace the old ways with today will be useless in 2080. Stability is becoming non-existent.

Today, some want to force “clean” energy on the nation in the name of a pure environment, even though clean energy sources are not capable of satisfactorily replacing fossil fuels, and the U.S. leads the world in carbon reduction.

Making some things free, like a college education, is thought to be useful to establish equality. But free things are not necessarily better than costly things, and not everyone who will avail themselves of a free college education needs to, or should go to college.

There is a move to devalue success, because celebrating success supposedly belittles those who didn’t win the race or become the valedictorian. Everyone gets a participation trophy, so they won’t feel bad. So, what’s the point of working to achieve?

Also, let’s put more of our lives under control of the government, which always knows best what we need.

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened and killed thousands and struck fear into the hearts and minds of millions of Americans. In trying to protect people and stop the spread of the virus, businesses have been closed and people confined to their homes.

Fear is a great motivator. The more the people are made to fear things — going to work or school, going to the grocery store or other commercial establishments, any activity that puts them too near other people — the fewer of us will dare to restart living our lives as we used to.

Some governors and mayors have imposed overly-restrictive rules on things people want and need to do. People are fined, arrested and jailed for not abiding by the imposed guidelines.

Does a governor or mayor have the unilateral authority to implement rules and penalties with the force of law that deny people their Constitutionally guaranteed rights in an emergency?

If so, perhaps we will see a rash of emergencies develop, as the element of control becomes more popular among office holders.

If you don’t do anything else while you are keeping yourself safe at home, give some thought about who is being hurt by this shutting down of society, and also about exactly who it is that benefits from it.