Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered an important address at the University of Texas and, in light of Progressivism becoming the face of the Democratic Party, a needed contrast with the Declaration of Independence. Not only are there more progressives running as Democrats, but supposedly moderate Democrats such as Joe Biden and newly elected Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger run as moderates, yet once in office, govern as committed Progressives.

Even the Republicans exhibit progressive tendencies. Using tariffs to restructure not only the U.S. economy but the whole world’s trading system is classic top-down industrial policy. The government taking an interest in certain companies isn’t free enterprise.

Justice Thomas paints a picture of how the Declaration holds that we are endowed with rights by our maker rather than whatever elite government “experts” deem to grant us. To the Progressive, our founding documents pertain to a bygone era and are irrelevant in the modern world. The Declaration and Constitution are quaint, but ill-suited to tackle today’s problems, such as Climate Change. They only impede necessary progress.

Thomas shows us the facts point in the other direction. Limited government with protections of person and property, even if they conflict with a government seeking the “greater good,” hasn’t ushered in the great wars and famines killing millions that top-down governments have spawned. Instead, they have fostered free markets to allocate resources more effectively, spurring innovation and enabling far more people to live longer, better lives.

Our 250th birthday is a good time to compare the route offered by what Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood termed the “Most Radical Revolution in History” with the progressive, top-down path. Before the American Revolution, dictates flowed from the top downward, while obligations moved only upward almost everywhere in the world.

A system where the ruling class, maybe the top 10%, got the good stuff, while most everyone else lived at subsistence. Why would anyone want to return to the rigid class systems of the past? Maybe it’s because you consider yourself elite and most others inferior. As the Justice puts it so well, “It requires of the people a subservience and weakness incompatible with a Constitution premised on the transcendent origin of our rights.”

Progressivism requires even more from the underclass: the suspension of their ability to reason. Progressives offer the same old bromides. Government experts can better plan and operate the economy, picking winners and losers, setting prices, and wages. Unions everywhere. The rich must pay their fair share to achieve progressive goals.

However, when questioned about how any of this has worked, anywhere, we get evasion, silence, or worse, phony information. If we point to the old Soviet Union, Cuba, or Venezuela, progressives say they weren’t true tests, or point to Scandinavia. The latter makes no sense. Those nations allow the market to allocate resources after suffering from bouts of socialism.

From Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb” to Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth,” pseudoscience is used to invent crises that only the government and its experts can solve. A cottage industry of progressive academics follows in support. Yet, no sign that millions are starving to death, or frying in our streets. Only the harm and waste their claims caused are evident.

On our Semiquincentennial, the Razzie for misinformation goes to the much-debunked 1619 Project, the product of the progressive New York Times, which distorts the story of our founding beyond all plausibility.  

Why do progressives continue to believe this stuff? It’s been my experience that they avoid exposure to contrary information. If you bring up people with other views, you get blank stares. They’re not curious about other reasoned arguments.

No wonder the Declaration of Independence is incompatible with Progressivism; it’s a product of “The Age of Reason.” Issac Newton’s Laws of Physics and the use of the scientific method replaced dogma and dicta. More newly educated people coming together to use their noggins to solve problems. Don’t tell me, show me facts and evidence.

Upending thousands of years of humanity’s top-down organization, a new nation based on individuals coming together to make bottom-up decisions changed the world. Those benefiting from the ancient system were not amused. They still aren’t and have been trying to turn back the clock ever since.

Like a giant brain with billions of cells, today we have billions of brains connected and interacting to solve problems. Why would we want to limit this power by 90% or more? That would make half-whit a compliment.

More brains, supported by inventions such as AI, speed innovation and power advances. Of course, change means of disruption, or, as the economist Joseph Schumpeter put it, “creative destruction,” upending lives. In the past, we needed far more workers to grow food and make goods. Millions left the land and the factories for different employment. Yet, despite some short-term pain for some, we are living better than ever.

Even if we have some misplaced nostalgia for farm and factory work, it simply is uneconomic to go backward. Whatever high-paying manufacturing jobs remain are now held by engineers who run automated systems with ever more robots.

What about the unions progressives advance to protect jobs? Show me a union-dominated industry with growing union membership. Private-sector union membership as a percentage of the workforce hasn’t done anything but decline. Job killers rather than job savers.

Public sector unions have an even worse record—teachers’ unions, in particular, where they dominate, correlate with low reading and math scores. Instead of learning critical thinking, students’ heads are, in many cases, filled with progressive ideas. Apparently, increasing students’ reasoning ability runs counter to the teachers’ union playbook.

Don’t believe me? On this 250th national birthday, ask your children or grandchildren about the revolution. They may have a dim view of our War for Independence and the Founding Fathers. If you share their view, where did all of you get your distorted ideas? Could it be the progressive educational establishment?

Clarence Thomas has done us a service by drawing a contrast between the founding documents and progressive thinking. This moment is a great time for all of us to reconnect with the ideals that formed our disruptive, radical, great nation.