The first self-evident truth, all men are created equal, is what Thompson calls species equality. It is perceptually self-evident that men are not horses or birds, and consequently, no man is born to rule another by nature. By the process Locke calls demonstration, subsequent truths are conceptual, and form a continuum known as the conceptual hierarchy..

Because reason is the primary attribute of man, and yet inequality of physical strength, esthetics, cognitive skills, and family resources are the natural state of human existence, reason itself is under attack in 2020 American culture. The popular bromide of these nihilists, the ones who reject moral truth, is “there are no absolutes.” The phrase itself is an absolute. As a self-evident contradiction whose purpose is to force artificial equality, it implies let the consequences be damned.