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This Supreme Court justice issues a warning about Progressivism · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

• 0:23
  Welcome to the National Day of Prayer, everybody.
• 0:27
  Today's the day.
• 0:28
  It is the first Thursday in May.
• 0:31
  That is the day when Congress, President Truman, 1952.
• 0:40
  Congress and President Truman established a national day of prayer as a yearly event.
• 0:46
  And the reason that they did this as a yearly event is because it's something that presidents have done since our presidency.
• 0:59
  We've prayed.
• 1:00
  Presidents have called for a national day of prayer.
• 1:04
  And a lot of times incorporated in that national day of prayer was a national day of fasting.
• 1:11
  So we're going to go to history class today.
• 1:13
  We are going to discover the historical context of prayer in this country and why we even have a national day of prayer.
• 1:24
  Why would we do that if we're not a we're not a praying people?
• 1:27
  Why would we have a national day of prayer?
• 1:31
  So I hear the, I hear the bells chiming.
• 1:43
  Grab yourself a seat in the front row.
• 1:46
  After history class, I want to, I want to explore some some recent cases, some recent activity by the DOJ in terms of, I guess let me say it this way.
• 2:02
  If we're we're a country that we have a national day of prayer, but we kicked prayer out of our out of our public school institutions.
• 2:16
  Had we not done that, had prayer stuck around, the DOJ probably wouldn't have to be doing some of the things that it's doing today that we're going to talk about.
• 2:26
  We're going to tie it into history class and we're going to talk about it after history class.
• 2:31
  Uh, but uh first let's let's do history class, the national day of prayer.
• 2:38
  Uh, President Washington, I don't know if you're if you're aware of this, but President Washington, after the whiskey rebellion in uh 1796, January 1st, 1796, actually, uh, he called for a national day of prayer.
• 2:58
  And here's what he said in his in his national day of prayer request.
• 3:03
  All persons within the United States to render sincere and hearty thanks to the great ruler of nations for the possession of constitutions of government, and fervently beseech the kind author of these blessings to establish habits of sobriety, order and morality and piety.
• 3:24
  This is what he asked the people to pray for.
• 3:27
  January 1st, 1796, uh, during a threatened war with France, his predecessor, John Adams, also declared a national day of prayer and fasting on March 23rd, 1798, a couple years later, and again on March 6, 1799.
• 3:56
  Here's what Adams said.
• 3:59
  As the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy by insidious acts of a foreign nation.
• 4:06
  I hereby recommend a day of solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer, that the citizens call to mind our numerous offenses against the most high God, confess them before him with the sincerest penitence, implore his pardoning mercy through the great mediator and redeemer for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of his Holy Spirit, we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to his righteous requisitions.
• 4:41
  Righteousness exalteth the nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.
• 4:45
  So then he uh he dropped the uh the Bible verse there.
• 4:51
  Uh calling for repentance.
• 4:54
  A lot of times in these days of prayer and fasting that were declared, repentance was certainly a part of it.
• 5:03
  Jefferson followed suit at the beginning of the revolutionary war.
• 5:08
  Uh, and this was, of course, even before obviously before he's president.
• 5:12
  Uh, but at the beginning of the revolutionary war, when Boston's Harbor was blockaded, Jefferson introduced a resolution in the Virginia Assembly calling for a day of prayer and fasting.
• 5:24
  When he was governor of Virginia, he issued a day of prayer.
• 5:28
  November 11th, 1779.
• 5:34
  Um he said that uh Congress uh is recommended to uh, or he said to Congress that a day of prayer is recommended to the several states, a day of public and solemn thanksgiving to Almighty God, that he would crown our arms with victory, that he would grant to his church the plentiful effusions of divine grace and pour out his holy spirit to all ministers of the gospel, that he would that he would bless and prosper the means of education and spread the light of Christian knowledge through the remotest corners of the earth.
• 6:13
  I do therefore issue this proclamation, appointing a day of public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God, given under by hand this 11th day of November in the year of our Lord, 1779, Thomas Jefferson.
• 6:30
  All right, I I just need to ask something here.
• 6:34
  Jefferson, who's the author of the letter that said there should be separation between church and state, said, asked the people of Virginia to pray that God would crown our arms with victory, that he would grant to his church the plentiful effusions of divine grace.
• 6:53
  Now, if the definition of if the definition of church and state were actually defined the way we define it, if if if that was the way Jefferson defined it, do you think Jefferson would have felt himself allowed to call upon the people of Virginia to ask that God would grant to his church the plentiful evisions of divine grace?
• 7:00
  If if that was the way Jefferson defined it, do you think Jefferson would have felt himself allowed to call upon the people of Virginia to ask that God would grant to his church the plentiful evisions of divine grace.
• 7:17
  Well, I know there's got to be a separation between church and state.
• 7:17
  Well, I know there's got to be a separation between church and state.
• 7:20
  Jefferson can't ask as governor, he can't ask the people of Virginia to call upon God, asking that he would grant to his church the plentiful.
• 7:20
  Jefferson can't ask as governor, he can't ask the people of Virginia to call upon God, asking that he would grant to his church the plentiful effusions of divine grace.
• 7:31
  How dare he break the wall of separation of church and state?
• 7:38
  Well, because Jefferson's definition isn't the same as our definition today.
• 7:43
  Jefferson's definition of a wall of separation between church and state was a wall that kept the state out of the church, not a wall that would keep the church out of the public square.
• 7:59
  We have flipped that that definition on its head.
• 8:05
  But the founders that that wasn't their definition.
• 8:08
  When Jefferson's calling for this day of prayer, he's not calling for a wall of separation, calling for the church to not be allowed to enter the public square or not allowing public figures to call upon God and ask him that he would grant his church the plentiful effusions of divine grace.
• 8:31
  James Madison continued in this same vein when he was president.
• 8:39
  Of course, this is Madison who introduced the First Amendment in the first Congress, that Congress shall not they shouldn't establish a religion.
• 8:55
  These are Madison's words.
• 8:57
  Congress shall not establish a religion.
• 9:00
  Yet Madison on November 16th, 1814, proclaimed two national days of prayer and a national day of fasting during the war of 1812.
• 9:15
  The first, of course, was on November 16, 1814.
• 9:20
  He said in the present time of public calamity and war, a day may be observed by the people of the United States as a day of public humiliation and fasting and of prayer to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these states, of confessing their sins and transgressions and of strengthening their vows of repentance, that he would be graciously pleased to pardon all their offenses.
• 9:53
  I could go through the list here of presidents who have done this, who have called for a national day of prayer and fasting.
• 10:01
  It just continues here.
• 10:04
  I've literally got sheet after sheet after sheet.
• 10:11
  I mean, President President Tyler, he does it, Zachary Taylor does it.
• 10:18
  Um Lincoln, of course, did it.
• 10:21
  He did it more than once.
• 10:25
  Uh can they I mean the list is endless.
• 10:29
  It just goes on and on and on.
• 10:32
  And so there is there is precedent here.
• 10:35
  There's his there's uh a historical record of presidents who called upon Almighty God and called upon the people to pray to Almighty God and to fast and to repent.
• 10:47
  That was the point of it.
• 10:49
  Let's fast, let's repent, let's have a day of humiliation.
• 10:52
  Let's lay ourselves out before God and let's call upon his blessings.
• 10:57
  But yet today, that's not, you know, in public schools, that's not a thing.
• 11:02
  Why you can't, why you can't do that?
• 11:05
  That's that's not that's not constitutional.
• 11:09
  1952, Congress and President Truman, and this is kind of where we started.
• 11:15
  They established the National Day of Prayer as a yearly event because this is just something that presidents have done.
• 11:23
  And Truman's like, you know what, let's just make it a year.
• 11:27
  Let's just establish a day of prayer every year.
• 11:30
  Let's not wait for calamity.
• 11:32
  Let's not wait for hardship, let's not wait for trouble where we feel like we have to call upon God.
• 11:38
  Let's just, let's just do it.
• 11:40
  Let's just call upon him.
• 11:44
  Truman called for a day on which all of us in our churches in our homes and in our hearts may beseech God to grant us wisdom to know the course which we should follow and strengthen patience to pursue that course steadfastly.
• 12:03
  Huh.
• 12:04
  I mean, there's a separation of church and state here.
• 12:06
  Truman should not be allowed to tell us to that we should all in our churches and in our homes call upon God.
• 12:14
  In 1988, President Ronald Reagan uh finally designated a particular day.
• 12:23
  He designated the first Thursday in May as the national day of prayer, urging Americans to ask God for his blessings, his peace, and the resting of his kind and holding hands on ourselves, our nation, our friends, and the defense of freedom and all mankind now and always.
• 12:47
  So that's today.
• 12:48
  Today, my friends, is the national day of prayer established by Reagan in 1988, called for by Truman in 1952, and something that presidents have done since we've had a presidency.
• 13:03
  We have called upon God to request his kindness, his benevolence, his mercy, his grace.
• 13:14
  And we do it again today as a people.
• 13:17
  We are gathered all over this country at various times in various moments.
• 13:24
  Communities are gathering around town squares.
• 13:27
  It's happening.
• 13:46
  And that Jefferson's wall of separation between church and state doesn't uh declare this to be a wrong act.
• 13:59
  It's a welcoming act.
• 14:00
  It's a welcoming act.
• 14:01
  Jefferson's wall of separation is a wall declaring that the government may not stop this.
• 14:01
  Jefferson's wall of separation is a wall declaring that the government may not stop this, that they may not infringe upon the freedom of religious expression.
• 14:09
  That they may not infringe upon the freedom of religious expression.
• 14:16
  Not that uh government is not allowed to uh uh to support it.
• 14:16
  Not that uh government is not allowed to uh uh to support it.
• 14:24
  That's not what the wall means.
• 14:24
  That's not what the wall means because government can support it.
• 14:26
  Because government can support it, government just can't establish a religion.
• 14:28
  Government just can't establish a religion, but certainly they can they can support it, as our presidents have have proven over the years in their own calls and in their own declarations.
• 14:40
  But we have an amendment, First Amendment that was weaponized against itself.
• 14:48
  Yeah, we'll we'll see where that takes us, though.
• 14:50
  We will see if we have a supreme court that has the wherewithal, because it's gonna have an opportunity.
• 14:55
  I'm telling you, an opportunity is coming where the Supreme Court will be allowed to um to take a look at this to absolutely put up a uh a defense against this and to this end.
• 15:15
  I'm looking at uh commentary here by William Brooks.
• 15:20
  Brooks is commenting on some comments that Justice Clarence Thomas made uh at the University of Texas.
• 15:28
  This was back in April.
• 15:30
  He is at a gathering celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and he delivered a message that was both a celebration and a warning.
• 15:43
  And the question he posed was not simply what the declaration meant in 1776, but whether its principles can endure in the years ahead.
• 15:55
  And I want to dive into this.
• 15:57
  I want to dive into uh the justice's comments, Clarence Thomas's comments, and I want to talk about what it means, what it means for us, but what it means for us here on this national day of prayer.
• 16:12
  And also I've got uh I've got some pieces here that talk about the DOJ and some probes they're doing in a variety of schools, uh, specifically schools in Illinois.
• 16:24
  And I I raised the question would we be here?
• 16:27
  Would the DOJ be probing in Illinois?
• 16:31
  What it is looking into had the had prayer not been ushered out of public schools.
• 16:36
  I would tell you no.
• 16:38
  It's my opinion that the DOJ would not have to be doing what it's doing had prayer remained.
• 16:44
  But that was their objective to kick prayer out.
• 16:47
  All right, so let's let's pause here when we when we come back on the other side of this break.
• 16:52
  We're gonna look at uh at Clarence Thomas.
• 16:54
  We're gonna look at his comments, and we're gonna dive into the DOJ.
• 16:57
  Don't go anywhere.
• 16:58
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• 19:28
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  Liberty and justice for all.
• 19:40
  Actually, the tradition of the National Day of Prayer, the tradition of prayer by this country's leaders was etched and ensconced long before the presidency.
• 19:57
  Long before we had a president.
• 19:59
  Our first uh act as a as a national government was the call to a continental Congress.
• 20:08
  And that first opening Congress in September of 1774.
• 20:18
  I'm sorry, uh, 1775, the second Continental Congress set aside a day for Americans to pray to be ever under care and protection of a kind Providence.
• 20:30
  Uh in 1774, they did the same thing.
• 20:34
  They they opened it up with with a day of prayer.
• 20:36
  Matter of fact, there was some debate if they should open with with prayer because there were so many different Christian denominations represented.
• 20:46
  And it was John Jay who said, you know, who should we have pray?
• 20:49
  Maybe we shouldn't have anyone pray because we don't want to offend another denomination.
• 20:56
  Samuel Adams took to the floor and said, I'm I'm look, I'm not a bigot.
• 21:00
  I don't care if an Anglican minister.
• 21:00
  I don't care if an Anglican minister.
• 21:03
  Matter of fact, I'll suggest an Anglican minister.
• 21:03
  Matter of fact, I'll suggest an Anglican minister.
• 21:06
  I hear that there's a good one here in town in Philadelphia, Reverend Duche.
• 21:06
  I hear that there's a good one here in town in Philadelphia, Reverend Duche.
• 21:11
  And everybody agreed based upon the recommendation of Samuel Adams.
• 21:11
  And everybody agreed based upon the recommendation of Samuel Adams.
• 21:17
  And they had a prayer meeting.
• 21:17
  And they had a prayer meeting.
• 21:19
  Literally, they had a prayer meeting.
• 21:19
  Literally, they had a prayer meeting.
• 21:22
  It lasted for a couple of hours.
• 21:22
  It lasted for a couple of hours.
• 21:25
  Uh our Congress, the very first, one of their very first official.
• 21:27
  The very first, one of their very first official acts was to pray.
• 21:33
  So the National Day of Prayer has a deep rich history in this country.
• 21:42
  And religion has a deep rich history in this country, as do the truths founded in the Declaration of Independence.
• 21:52
  Okay.
• 21:53
  So let's let's take a look at the speech that Clarence Thomas gave in April at the University of Texas.
• 22:02
  This, of course, is in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration.
• 22:09
  But the question that the judge here, Justice Clarence Thomas, that he's posing is not simply what the Declaration meant in 1776 when it was drafted and declared, but whether its principles can endure.
• 22:29
  Can they endure today?
• 22:31
  Can they endure in the years to come?
• 22:35
  And his argument is that America is not just a political arrangement.
• 22:42
  We weren't just a group of colonies coming together politically to unite under one political banner.
• 22:50
  Instead, Thomas declares that America is a moral proposition.
• 22:57
  He said the declaration's claim that all men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights is not a historical curiosity.
• 23:09
  It is, in fact, a statement of enduring truth.
• 23:13
  One that demands not just agreement, but commitment.
• 23:19
  Because when Jefferson staked his claim that all men were created equal, that fact wasn't being acted upon.
• 23:46
  Even though many of them held slaves, and even though many of them were not acting in that equality, the truth is still the truth, that all men were and are created equal.
• 24:00
  And this is a profound truth that Jefferson is declaring.
• 24:04
  Profound indeed.
• 24:06
  And as we have mentioned here, and will continue to mention in perpetuity.
• 24:11
  Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence called out King George for instituting the slave trade on the continent, called it out.
• 24:21
  And what we are unaware of, many of us, is that Jefferson made the attempt to uh to sell his slaves.
• 24:30
  He made the attempt to set them free, but in Virginia was against the law.
• 24:34
  He wasn't allowed to do that.
• 24:35
  The king wouldn't allow it.
• 24:37
  Virginia's a royal colony at that time.
• 24:40
  So listen, the point is that Jefferson believed it.
• 24:44
  They all believed it.
• 24:45
  Well, I say they all.
• 24:47
  99% of them believed it.
• 24:50
  But Thomas says, look, it's it's the view that the statement is of enduring truth, one that demands not just agreement, but also commitment.
• 24:59
  He said this distinction between agreement and commitment matters.
• 25:04
  Appeals to liberty and equality are now common across the political spectrum.
• 25:10
  But as Thomas suggested, such language becomes hollow if it's detached from its source.
• 25:18
  What's the source?
• 25:20
  If rights are treated as flexible constructs rather than fixed realities, rather than inalienable, rather than gifts from God, then they cease to bind us.
• 25:35
  They become tools, he said, invoked when useful and discarded when inconvenient.
• 25:50
  We know this.
• 25:51
  Unless you're a Marxist, you understand this.
• 25:54
  They are understood to precede government.
• 25:58
  It is indeed that government exists, according to Jefferson in the declaration, to secure these inalienable rights, not to redefine them, not to restrict them, not to remove them, but to secure them.
• 26:14
  This principle has shaped the nation's greatest moral achievements.
• 26:21
  Clarence Thomas declares what those moral achievements are, or what some of them are.
• 26:27
  He says the abolitionist movement, the struggle for civil rights, and other American reform movements did not reject founding ideals.
• 26:37
  They appealed to them.
• 26:39
  They argued that the nation had failed to live up to its founding principles.
• 26:45
  Not that the principles themselves were flawed.
• 26:48
  This is such an important distinction.
• 26:51
  The principle is not flawed.
• 26:54
  That all men are created equal is not flawed.
• 26:57
  It's not even flawed that Jefferson stated it.
• 27:11
  Because he believed it.
• 27:23
  The importance of founding principles, that they're not flawed in and of themselves is foundational.
• 27:32
  So Thomas says that in this sense, the declaration is not an obstacle to progress, as progressives would tell us it is.
• 27:41
  John Dewey would tell us the declaration is an obstacle to progress.
• 27:46
  Instead, it is the foundation of progress.
• 27:50
  You cannot have progress without the ensconced foundational principles rooted in the declaration.
• 27:59
  Of course, Jewey or Jewey, Dewey and his Marxist ilk, to them, progress and progressivism is going backwards.
• 28:00
  Of course, Jewey or Dewey, Dewey and his Marxist ilk, to them, progress and progressivism is going backwards, going to a time before the declaration.
• 28:10
  Going to a time before the Declaration.
• 28:14
  Going to a time without the declaration.
• 28:15
  Going to a time without the Declaration.
• 28:18
  That to them is progress.
• 28:18
  That to them is progress.
• 28:20
  But that, my friends, is not progress.
• 28:20
  But that, my friends, is not progress.
• 28:24
  The declaration itself, Thomas says, provides a fixed standard against which injustice can be measured.
• 28:25
  The Declaration itself, Thomas says, provides a fixed standard against which in
• 28:32
  Remove that standard, and the language of rights becomes unhinged, subject to reinterpretation according to shifting political fashion.
• 28:41
  And that's what the Dewey camp want.
• 28:43
  That's what the Marxist ilk want.
• 28:46
  They would love it if the declaration, if our inalienable rights, if our constitution was subject to reinterpretation according to shifting political fashion, according to the evolution of society, as it were.
• 29:02
  Central to the remarks here by Justice Clarence Thomas is what's described as a competing set of first principles.
• 29:12
  Those of progressivism.
• 29:15
  Thomas argued that these adversarial principles entered American culture in the early 20th century, and they were a deliberate departure from the founding vision.
• 29:28
  Progressivism's most influential advocate at the time, and probably for all time, President Woodrow Wilson insisted that the constitution and the principles behind it were no longer adequate to the needs of modern society.
• 29:44
  Government, Wilson asserted, should evolve with historical change.
• 29:49
  Government needs to evolve with the ever-changing winds of societal evolution.
• 29:55
  And therefore, the constitution needs to evolve alongside the ever-changing winds of societal evolution.
• 30:03
  This was his belief.
• 30:05
  Wilson's belief, this was their belief, the progressives.
• 30:09
  This shift was not merely practical.
• 30:12
  It was philosophical.
• 30:15
  Progressives rejected the idea that rights are fixed, that they're universal, that they're in inalienable, that they're from God.
• 30:23
  In their place, progressives advanced a more fluid understanding, one in which rights emerge from social conditions and are shaped by political developments.
• 30:37
  Not foundational, not etched and ensconced in stone, but shifting.
• 30:44
  You know what Jesus taught us about the man who builds his house on shifting sand versus the man who builds his house on solid rock.
• 30:53
  But our young people don't know that story anymore because the Bible's been removed from public education.
• 31:01
  Well, they get they get Sunday school one day a week, Dean.
• 31:05
  They get to go to church on Wednesday nights.
• 31:07
  That's when they should hear about Jesus and his parable of the shifting sand.
• 31:13
  Well, uh, the country is rooted in Christian principles of morality and virtue and values.
• 31:20
  And the Bible used to be a part of that in public education.
• 31:25
  Indeed, the Northwest ordinance declares that religion and morality and knowledge should be ensconced in education.
• 31:37
  Therefore, understanding this principle that we should, that we should build on rock rather than shifting sand rather than that the changing tides and whims of society.
• 31:49
  But in order for that concept to stand, the Bible had to be taken out of our education system.
• 31:57
  This is part of it, my friends.
• 31:59
  This is this is part and parcel.
• 32:03
  Um yes, the the progressives believes uh believed and still do that rights emerge from social conditions and they're shaped by political developments.
• 32:15
  It's this view, uh, wherein they they hold the belief that liberty is not something that exists prior to government.
• 32:25
  Liberty is something defined and administered by government.
• 32:30
  But the problem here is that Jefferson listed liberty as an inalienable right.
• 32:36
  Liberty doesn't come to you from your government.
• 32:39
  Your government doesn't have the authority to give you liberty, just like it doesn't have the authority to give you life or to give you happiness.
• 32:49
  Liberty is before government.
• 32:52
  Thomas contended in his speech that this framework did not originate in the American experience.
• 33:01
  Progressives openly drew from European, we're talking about the progressive framework.
• 33:06
  That's what Thomas is referring to when he says it didn't originate in the American experience.
• 33:12
  Progressives openly drew from European models, particularly the centralized administrative state developed under Otto von Bismarck in Germany.
• 33:23
  These systems placed greater trust in expertise and in bureaucracy, and much less in the judgment of ordinary citizens.
• 33:32
  And this is why it was Wilson who was so adamant about bureaucracy.
• 33:40
  He it's what he wanted.
• 33:43
  And you know who was in his administration was a man by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• 33:48
  And it was FDR that gave us the alphabet soup of the bureaucracy we currently have today.
• 33:56
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:58
  Elite scholars like John Dewey provided the intellectual scaffolding for this transformation that was to take place, brought to you by the hand of Woodrow Wilson.
• 34:10
  John Dewey criticized the founders for treating their principles as timeless truths, because that's how the declaration opens.
• 34:19
  It opens as a as a timeless statement.
• 34:23
  When in the course of human events it says, when one people decide that they have to remove themselves from one leader.
• 34:34
  This is uh this isn't uh specific.
• 34:37
  This is foundational.
• 34:39
  This is um this is a timeless truth.
• 34:43
  And and Dewey criticized.
• 34:46
  And in Dewey's view, such ideas were historically conditioned, relevant only to their era, and not binding on future generations.
• 34:57
  Progressive intellectuals, according to Thomas, almost always favored change over permanence.
• 35:00
  Almost always favored change over permanence.
• 35:04
  Hence their word progressive.
• 35:04
  Hence their word progressive.
• 35:06
  We have to progress, we have to move.
• 35:06
  We have to progress, we have to move, we have to change.
• 35:07
  We have to change.
• 35:09
  And they took the word progressive and commandeered it because it's a positive thing.
• 35:09
  And they took the word progressive and commandeered it because it's a positive thing.
• 35:14
  When you progress, change is positive.
• 35:14
  When you progress, change is positive.
• 35:16
  And so they attached that word to themselves.
• 35:16
  And so they attached that word to themselves.
• 35:19
  When in fact, they knew that their change required them to go backwards.
• 35:19
  When in fact they knew that their change required them to go backwards.
• 35:23
  There was going to be no progressing.
• 35:23
  There was going to be no progressing.
• 35:25
  There was going to be no positive advancement.
• 35:25
  There was going to be no positive advancement.
• 35:28
  There was only going to be negative reverence.
• 35:28
  There was only going to be negative reversal to go back to a time before the declaration.
• 35:35
  But as Thomas made clear in his speech, this redefinition, it has consequences.
• 35:42
  It has deep consequences.
• 35:45
  All right.
• 35:52
  You know what they are.
• 35:53
  You can feel it.
• 35:54
  You can see it happening and unfolding all around you.
• 35:59
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• 37:04
  All right, more of Clarence Thomas on the other side of this break.
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• 38:52
  Okay, let's get back into the comments made by Clarence Thomas at the University of Texas, celebrating 250 years of American independence.
• 39:03
  And in his celebratory speech here, he is explaining the perils of progressivism.
• 39:10
  And this is where we left off at the end of segment two.
• 39:33
  These redefinitions have consequences.
• 39:38
  If rights are no longer inherent and inherited or inherent, I should say, but instead uh constructed by government, they they become contingent.
• 39:55
  They become contingent on particular things because right now they're contingent on nothing.
• 40:02
  God grants you life, it's not contingent on anything.
• 40:06
  He grants you liberty, it's not contingent on anything.
• 40:09
  He grants you the pursuit of happiness.
• 40:12
  You have the ability to pursue happiness.
• 40:14
  It's not contingent.
• 40:16
  But if these rights come from government, then they are contingent on things.
• 40:22
  Their scope depends on those who interpret the right and then enforce the right.
• 40:35
  And this is what they want to do with life.
• 40:38
  They're attempting to define life.
• 40:42
  Is it in the womb?
• 40:45
  Is it out of the womb?
• 40:47
  Is the baby alive in the womb?
• 40:49
  I mean, it's moving.
• 40:52
  At what point is it alive?
• 40:54
  So these are, you know, there are many of us who believe that life exists at conception.
• 41:01
  Matter of fact, I don't know if you've seen these videos of when the connection between the when the sperm lands in the egg, there's this explosion of light, as it were.
• 41:15
  This explosion of life, one might say.
• 41:56
  Obviously, they're in that position because they're the expert.
• 42:01
  This, of course, helps explain progressive skeptics uh skepticism towards self-government.
• 42:01
  This, of course, helps explain progressive skeptics uh skepticism towards self government.
• 42:08
  Wilson himself expressed open disdain for the political capacities of ordinary Americans.
• 42:08
  Wilson himself expressed open disdain for the political capacities of ordinary Americans, absolute disdain.
• 42:16
  Absolute disdain.
• 42:18
  Described them in unflattering terms, and he lamented that they exercise too much direct influence over public affairs.
• 42:18
  Described them in unflattering terms.
• 42:22
  And he lamented that they exercised too much direct influence over public affairs.
• 42:28
  How dare they?
• 42:28
  How dare they?
• 42:29
  They're just
• 42:29
  They're just, they're just everyday Joes.
• 42:32
  How come they should have so much influence over everyday public affairs?
• 42:38
  Wilson instead favored a system in which decision making would be entrusted to trained administrators, insulated from popular pressure, insulated from being removed, insulated from being removed by a vote.
• 42:58
  And that's what we have.
• 43:01
  But we don't vote them into their position.
• 43:04
  They're in place forever.
• 43:08
  They don't have election cycles.
• 43:11
  I mean, the representatives do, the senators do, the president does, but the bureaucracy does not.
• 43:18
  They're ensconced.
• 43:20
  Hence why Ronald Reagan referred to them as the fourth branch of government.
• 43:26
  And this was this was Wilson's objective.
• 43:30
  And it was lived out by his protege.
• 43:35
  FDR.
• 43:36
  FDR made it happen.
• 43:41
  Wilson favored a system in which decision making would not only be entrusted by the trained administrators, insulated from popular pressure, but the opposite of that is that it's not a system where the general public has any control at all.
• 44:01
  And Clarence Thomas suggested that these views are fundamentally at odds with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
• 44:13
  A government premised on natural rights and popular sovereignty cannot easily coexist with one that treats both as provisional.
• 44:25
  Not going to happen.
• 44:26
  One's going to have to stay and the other's going to have to go.
• 44:35
  Thomas pointed to 20th century history where ideologies that subordinated individual rights to broader visions of progress produced catastrophic results.
• 44:50
  Regimes led by Joseph Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, all these regimes, communist in nature, demonstrated how expansive state power, when justified in the name of historical necessity, can lead to immense human suffering.
• 45:12
  Thomas did not say that American progressivism is identical to such regimes.
• 45:20
  But he did suggest they share a common premise, which is rights are subordinate to evolving conceptions of the collective good.
• 45:31
  Once that premise is accepted, limits on the power of government are far less secure.
• 45:39
  He also noted that this kind of reasoning influenced developments in American society.
• 45:53
  By the way, and Buck V.
• 45:55
  Bell, which sanctioned forced sterilization, by the way, reflected a willingness to treat rights as contingent on social conditions and expert judgment.
• 46:09
  And it never should have been that way.
• 46:12
  These were not aberrations in a vacuum.
• 46:15
  They were in part products of an intellectual climate that had moved away from the declaration's fixed principles.
• 46:24
  The broader implication is difficult to ignore.
• 46:29
  When rights are defined by government, they are necessarily unstable.
• 46:47
  They can expand, but they can also contract.
• 46:50
  Their durability depends less on principle that's fixed and more so on power.
• 46:57
  So Clarence Thomas's warning wasn't a call to reject change.
• 47:02
  American history is in many respects a story of genuine moral progress.
• 47:08
  We see examples of this moral progress throughout.
• 47:12
  One of them being, yes, the declaration declares all men are created equal, and we progress from that through the through the civil war and through the civil rights movement to finally get to a point where we're living out that foundational principle.
• 47:30
  So, no, we're not, we're not rejecting change.
• 47:35
  We're extending rights to those who were once excluded.
• 47:39
  This is a very real achievement.
• 47:42
  The real question is this.
• 47:45
  How should progress be understood?
• 47:48
  If it represents a deeper realization of the principles articulated in 1776, then it remains grounded in a stable framework.
• 47:59
  If it represents a departure from those principles, replacing them with new new ideas, evolving ideas, derived from shifting intellectual fashions, that foundation itself begins to crumble almost on existence.
• 48:19
  Just as if you were going to build something on sand.
• 48:22
  We go back to the words of Christ.
• 48:24
  This has consequences beyond law and politics, Thomas says.
• 48:28
  People who no longer share a common understanding of the source of these rights will struggle to agree on their meaning.
• 48:36
  And this is the point where we're at, by the way, where uh people are no longer sharing this common understanding.
• 48:42
  Why?
• 48:43
  Because we've ushered the Bible out of public education.
• 48:50
  Disputes that might once have been resolved through shared principles now become a contest of wills, mediated by forces whose authority grows as consensus declines.
• 49:00
  Whose authority grows as consensus declines.
• 49:04
  This is according to this uh to this commentary here that William Brooks is offering.
• 49:04
  This is according to this uh to this commentary here that William Brooks is offering.
• 49:12
  The result is a paradox, Brooks says, in attempting to make rights more responsive to changing circumstances.
• 49:12
  The result is a paradox, Brooks says, in attempting to make rights more responsive to changing circumstances.
• 49:19
  We risk making them less secure.
• 49:19
  We risk making them less secure.
• 49:23
  What is gained by flexibility is lost in permanence.
• 49:23
  What is gained by flexibility is lost in permanence.
• 49:28
  Critics of the
• 49:29
  Critics of the declaration often emphasize its contradictions.
• 49:34
  A generation that proclaimed equality also tolerated slavery and excluded many ordinary people from political life.
• 49:41
  We understand that.
• 49:43
  But while important, this observation does not resolve the issue.
• 49:48
  The failure to uphold a principle does not invalidate the principle itself.
• 49:54
  It doesn't make it untrue.
• 49:55
  It doesn't make it a lie.
• 49:58
  It is precisely because the principle exists that the failure can be identified and the failure can be corrected.
• 50:05
  And in many instances, those failures were corrected.
• 50:09
  And maybe are still being corrected.
• 50:12
  The language of the declaration that made reform possible.
• 50:17
  That's uh that's where we're at today.
• 50:21
  If if that language doesn't exist, we're not where we are today.
• 50:25
  To abandon that language or to redefine it beyond recognition.
• 50:30
  What the progressives want to do is to risk losing the very standard that can support progress in the future.
• 50:37
  But they don't want you to hear that.
• 50:39
  They don't want you to believe that.
• 50:42
  Just as Thomas concluded in his speech with a reminder that the declaration is not merely a document to be admired, but a commitment to be lived.
• 50:54
  The men who signed it pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, based upon the ability that Providence had given them to do that.
• 51:06
  That level of devotion, by the way, is difficult to replicate.
• 51:10
  It's difficult to duplicate.
• 51:13
  But it underscores the seriousness of what they were undertaking.
• 51:18
  It underscores the seriousness of their endeavor.
• 51:22
  The question today is whether enough Americans retain that commitment.
• 51:28
  It is easy to affirm principles in the abstract.
• 51:32
  It's far more difficult to defend them when doing so carries a cost when it invites criticism or jeopardizes opportunity or places one at odds with conventional wisdom with the majority of the day.
• 51:48
  Yet this is precisely what is required for the preservation of such principles.
• 51:54
  A free society depends not only on its institutions, but on the willingness of its citizens to uphold the truths on which those institutions rest.
• 52:06
  The erosion of these truths rarely announces itself in a dramatic way.
• 52:11
  It occurs gradually over time, as language is altered, as assumptions shift, as convictions give way to convenience.
• 52:25
  By the way, in invites celebration.
• 52:29
  But it also demands from us a reflection.
• 52:34
  If the document is treated as a ceremonial icon, honored in speech, but neglected in practice, then the American experiment may become something fundamentally different from what it was intended to be.
• 52:50
  Ultimately, uh Clarence Thomas's 250th anniversary message is really it's it's not only one of remembering the declaration, but it's one of civic responsibility.
• 53:04
  The endurance of the principles of 76 is not guaranteed.
• 53:09
  They must be understood, they must be lived, they must be defended.
• 53:13
  And that is not a task for institutions alone.
• 53:16
  It's a task for everyday citizens.
• 53:18
  It's a task for you and me.
• 53:20
  And it's a task that cannot be put off indefinitely.
• 53:27
  It's one that has to be embraced.
• 53:30
  And it's up to us to embrace it.
• 53:33
  It's up to us to realize the importance, the importance of the declaration and what those principles mean.
• 53:45
  And what we can do to move those principles forward, because we have to.
• 54:13
  This reminds me, I saw a meme the other day.
• 54:16
  Maybe I'll end on this.
• 54:17
  I saw a meme.
• 54:18
  And the meme was uh the comment was, I would give this student an instant A.
• 54:25
  And so there's a there's a picture of a of a paper, and and one of the questions is it just simply says, defend your answer.
• 54:33
  We don't know what the previous question was, you know, that the answer was to the previous question.
• 54:39
  But the next question was defend your answer.
• 54:42
  Obviously, this student was not either he wasn't in a in a position to rhetorically defend his answer, or maybe he was just a comedian, but he wrote the word answer in bubble letters, and then he drew a fence around the word answer.
• 54:58
  And then outside of the fence, he drew uh a little stick figure with a with a soldier hat and a cannon, and you know, the cannons firing weaponry and the stick figure that the bubble above his head is Sarge, I don't know how long I can hold them off as he's defending his answer.
• 55:18
  Ah, it made me laugh.
• 55:20
  I thought it was funny.
• 55:21
  I didn't repost it though, but I just thought it was funny.
• 55:25
  Sometimes, sometimes things are funny.
• 55:28
  Uh, it's up to us.
• 55:30
  It's up to us to defend it.
• 55:32
  And you know, sometimes we wonder how long can we hold them off, but we have to not only defend the document, the declaration, but the principles that are within it.
• 55:42
  Uh, the document itself, it's in safe keeping.
• 55:45
  You know, if you've watched National Treasure, you know it's in safe keeping.
• 55:48
  Unless you're Nicholas Cage, then you can steal it.
• 55:50
  But the principles, the principles of said document, that uh you would think that would be more easily defended, but easier said than done.
• 56:00
  Easier said than done.
• 56:02
  That is our objective today.
• 56:02
  That is our objective today.
• 56:04
  That's our objective this year.
• 56:04
  That's our objective this year.
• 56:06
  That is our objective for the rest of our God-given lives.
• 56:06
  That is our objective for the rest of our God given lives.
• 56:09
  Those of us that love this country, those of us that live in it, those of us that are blessed to call it home.
• 56:09
  Those of us that love this country, those of us that live in it, those of us that are blessed to call it home.
• 56:16
  We must defend those principles.
• 56:16
  We must defend those principles, and we must do it on the daily.
• 56:20
  And we must do it on the daily.
• 56:22
  All right.
• 56:22
  All right.
• 56:23
  My friends, thank you for joining joining me on uh National Prayer Day, the National Day of Prayer.
• 56:23
  My friends, thank you for joining joining me on National Prayer Day, the National Day of Prayer.
• 56:29
  I hope that.
• 56:29
  I hope that you, I hope you enjoy this day.
• 56:32
  I hope you spend some time in prayer, and I hope you spend some time thinking about the principles of the Declaration and what you as an American citizen can do to defend those principles.
• 56:42
  All right.
• 56:43
  Encourage your friends and your family to get on the dean's list.
• 56:47
  Let's unite to renovate the age.