Many of those on the side against what is happening in Iraq would possibly agree with what John Adams said:
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
With the San Francisco Chronical reporters, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, being ordert o testify before a grand jury on their source for illegally leaked grand jury testimony from the BALCO case, would Adams give it an “I told you so?”
“When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.”
Or would he claim that protection of law is more important than protection of an unnamed media source?
“The law…will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations and wanton tempers of men…On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace.”
What do you think?
With both parties beginning to position their potential candidates, many people are anticipating this election as a chance for change. Adams quite possibly saw that by giving liberty to the people, they were also giving power to the people:
“Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”
Do we have power through our liberty over politics?
It is that time of year again, where children gather up their supplies and begin the school year. What, though, was Adams endorsing in terms of eduction?
“There are two types of education…
One should teach us how to make a living,
And the other how to live.”
Is he right? If so, then what is the answer?
Whether it is Mark McGwire refusing to assist in the steroid investigations, Barry Bonds presumed guilt in the use of performance enhancing drugs, or Floyd Landis’ positive test for synthetic hormones, cheating is on the minds of the public. Adams actually had some things to say about honesty and fairness. In his diary, for instance:
“My Principle has been, to deal upon Honour with all men, so long as they deal upon Honour with me, but as soon as they begin to trick me, I [illegible] think I ought to trick them.”
So how would he handle these issues in sports and even in politics? Does he mean that you must fight fire with fire? Would Adams say that all athletes should, then, use performance enhancing drugs?
Whether it is the citizens of Cuba, issues in Iraq, or what happens right here at home, there is seemingly endless commentary on equality, but John Adams seemingly did not believe that all people ARE equal:
“Pick up, the first 100 men you meet, and make a Republick. Every Man will have an equal Vote. But when deliberations and discussions are opened it will be found that 25, by their Talents, Virtues being equal, will be able to carry 50 Votes. Every one of these 25, is an Aristocrat, in my Sense of the Word; whether he obtains his one Vote in Addition to his own, by his Birth Fortune, Figure, Eloquence, Science, learning, Craft Cunning, or even his Character for good fellowship and a bon vivant.”
Is he right? Do we put too much emphasis on equality when, in reality, not everyone IS equal?
With the Kansas board of education continuing their fight over Intelligent Design versus Evolution, even in his own time Adams may have been a liberal on this one as he wrote to Thomas Jefferson:
“The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?”
President Bush has called on the people of Cuba to push for democracy in this, the time of the Castro’s possible demise. Perhaps Adams would have made a similar call based on a letter he wrote to Sam Adams:
“All good government is and must be republican. But at the same time, you can or will agree with me, that there is not in lexicography a more fraudulent word… Are we not, my friend, in danger of rendering the word republican unpopular in this country by an
indiscreet, indeterminate, and equivocal use of it? [...] Whenever I use the word republic with approbation, I mean a government in which the people have collectively, or by representation, an essential share in the sovereignty… the republican forms in Poland and Venice are much worse, and those of Holland and Bern very little better, than the monarchical form in France before the late revolution.”
With everything from how the US should treat this time in Cuba to the upcoming elections, partison politics are arguably more alive now than ever. Adams may have seen it all coming…
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, it to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
By all accounts, the people of Cuba have been oppressed for some time by a leader with nearly unlimited power. What would Adams have thought of such a land?
“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.”
With Fidel Castro’s health reportedly on the decline, though, and with rumors of his demise rampant, consider John Adams’ thoughts on revolution. Is this a time for Cuban revolution?
“It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense. “