“European thinkers have long criticized America for remaining trapped in a Lockeian world with its weak decentralized government and strong individual rights. They say our 18th-Century declaration has prevented us from progressing to higher forms of government. But we were fortunate not to trade our Lockeian bonds for the supposedly enlightened world of Hegel, Marx, and their followers. Fascism, which after all was national socialism, triggered wars in Europe and Asia that killed tens of millions. The socialism of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China proceeded to kill more tens millions of their own people. This is what happens when natural rights give way to the ‘higher good’ notions of history, progress, or, as Thomas Sowell has written, ‘The visions of the anointed.’ None of this, of course, was an improvement on the principles of the Declaration [of Independence].” – Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas