“I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.”
John Adams
“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.”
John Adams
“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
John Adams
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.”
John Adams
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”
True.
And Adams ignores the system of “government” that had been functioning in the colonies from their establishment to the ratification of the Constitution; namely, a method of organizing society based on original English/American law. That is, rule by assemblies, rather than rule by privileged thieves and cutthroats, generally known as Persian law.
Original English/American law was simply based on contracts between petitioners for redress and particular assemblies (town, county, or state meetings, on up to Continental Congresses.
A purpose of the American Revolution – not the counter-revolution (which produced the Constitution) – was to preserve this government by assembly.
This was signaled as American Founders repeatedly declared that “no man is obligated to obey any law or pay any tax unless he has given consent to it”. Did they mean this literally? Of course they did. From the first English settlement to the Revolution this was how affairs of the colonies were managed. Every “law” and every “tax” had its origin in contracts between colonial assemblies and those who petitioned for redress of grievances. The terms of the contract were sometimes referred to as “laws” of the contract, while its money payments were treated as “taxes”. And only petitioners were obligated to obey such “laws” and pay such “taxes”. When redress was completed, related “laws” and “taxes” expired. (http://redressone.wordpress.com/)
This right of consent has powerful implications today: it means that only those who petition (submit proposed legislation to Congress) are obligated to obey terms (“laws”) and needed money payments “(taxes)” related to such petition. This is what should happen according to the right of consent.
But, of course, we all know what actually happens: those who “petition” Congress for favors (or redress) are substantially exempt from regulations and taxes – while all non-petitioners are made subject to such regulations, laws and taxes made necessary by resulting “law”. This system is generally known as Persian Law, law of the conqueror, mouth law, rule by terror, admiralty or martial law.
Thus, according to our FOUNDING DOCUMANTS and by Revolution won, our inheritance is the right of consent. But, IN FACT we servilely labor under the worst kind of tyranny – which goes by many names.