Posted on 04/19/2026 7:03:53 AM PDT by MtnClimber
[Video at Link] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the principles of the Declaration of Independence should be lived, not treated as abstract, intellectualized theories during a lecture this week at the University of Texas, Austin.
"Even those who support them too often talk about them as if they were academic playthings. They overcomplicate them, take the spirit out of them, and discuss them in a way that puts us to sleep," he said. "But the principles of the Declaration of Independence, as I encountered them, are a way of life. They are not an abstract theory that you only learn in college or law school, but the basic premises of our Constitution and government that you can learn from the people all around you."
"We knew that life, liberty, and property were sacrosanct. Those truths were self-evident to the adults in our lives and were taught to us as indelible, undeniable truths."
"Throughout my youth, these truths were articles of faith that were impervious to bigotry and discrimination," he said. "Despite the multiplicity of laws and customs that reeked of bigotry, it was universally believed among those blacks with whom I lived, and who had very little or no formal education, that in God’s eyes and under our Constitution, we were equal."
"This was also the case with my nuns, most of whom were Irish immigrants," he said. "Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from architects of segregation and discrimination."
"All too often, there is an unfortunate tendency, when discussing the Declaration, to make these self-evident truths and first principles of government obscure. Intellectuals want you to believe that our founding principles are matters of esoteric philosophy or sophisticated debate."
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
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A great video. It is about 1 hour.
Endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights...
Amen Justice Thomas
...and certain unalienable responsibilities...
Liberty is the charge upon every generation and can be lost just as quickly.
YES
God bless Justice Thomas, a man of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
“Though not a literate man, my grandfather often spoke of our rights and obligations coming from God, not from architects of segregation and discrimination.
Tell the Coming Generation
Psa 78:1 A psalm of Asaph. O my people, listen to my instructions. Open your ears to what I am saying,
Psa 78:2 for I will speak to you in a parable. I will teach you hidden lessons from our past—
Psa 78:3 stories we have heard and known, stories our ancestors handed down to us.
Psa 78:4 We will not hide these truths from our children; we will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the LORD, about His power and His mighty wonders.
Clarence Thomas argued that the principles
a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning:
“the basic principles of justice”
https://kirkcenter.org/conservatism/ten-conservative-principles/
Being neither a religion nor an ideology, the body of opinion termed conservatism possesses no Holy Writ and no Das Kapital to provide dogmata. So far as it is possible to determine what conservatives believe, the first principles of the conservative persuasion are derived from what leading conservative writers and public men have professed during the past two centuries. After some introductory remarks on this general theme, I will proceed to list ten such conservative principles.
Big time.
Well said.
I love how this man thinks!!!
I love how this man thinks!!!
We have failed the Founding Fathers, miserably.
Bump
Very inspirational speech!
Govt of the Swamp, by the Swamp, for the Swamp needs to be obliterated and perish from this earth
SO brilliant!
I will say it again: “We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
Recently, I came across a definition of courage that is attributed to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
In essence, the signers of the Declaration were saying that they were willing to die for the principles they were asserting, the supreme act of courage. Those principles were more important than their fear.
I wish the GOP had a hundred Senators and Congress people exactly like him.
Bfl
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