The John Adams Society

The John Adams Society

William G. Carpenter John J. Pope Larry Colson Roger Belfay

Chairman Secretary Chief Whip Chancellor

October 2006

IT WAS THE CROWNING ERA OF LIBERALS. The American Colonists took with them from England a rich liberal heritage and nurtured it in their new independence. Among their cherished liberal doctrines were those of the Magna Carta ceded by the English monarch. It represented a victory against European despotism and helped form the creed of both America’s Declaration of Independence – that all human beings are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (or property, if you read John Locke), and the United States Constitution – limiting government to government for the people by the people. Amendments to the Constitution explicitly limiting powers of the Federal government were to further ensure freedom of speech, the press, assembly, religious worship, the bearing of arms, as well as freedoms from cruel and unusual punishment, self-incrimination and unreasonable search and seizure, and a guarantee of due process of law and a speedy public trial with an impartial jury. With the role of government thereby deemed to protect said rights, the American colonists gorged themselves on liberty and broke away from the mentalities of ancient hierarchical societies.

At their best, liberals are flexible to the extent of apparent contradiction, sometimes positing conservatively when practical in consideration that: a government by the people can become a tyranny of the majority; free markets under the dominance of state supported enterprises are not free; free speech may be obscene and treasonous; a thoroughly liberal state may be inherently ambivalent about law enforcement. As such, liberals are divided over to whom state prerogatives should apply. After all, who and by what measure shall determine what is Good? Without this question resolved, even a great good such as the abolition of war cannot, paradoxically, be strictly held without force. Inevitably, steadfast liberals bite off more than can be chewed. So, it is not surprising that somewhere in their cultivated tangle of protections and rights, liberals lost sight of the Ninth Amendment to the US Constitution – “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

ON THE OTHER HAND, liberals nowadays have turned their trophy of limited government upside down. The past two hundred years have witnessed the co-opting of liberals by leftists of various sorts, first sporting the tone of the Jacobins, then the Utopians and now some pragmatic Machiavellian cult oriented to pain and division. Now the liberal is transfixed to be shorn on things repugnant, purposefully mocking freedom to disturb social harmony, for the welfare state they champion would actually require a national solidarity and entail private charity, yet conjure objection to the state seizure of property that liberals endorse. It is all too clear now that the innate can-do American no longer fits in the reigning puzzle of complex liberal ethics, and lest man’s unpredictable tendencies for independence and self determination emerge, the bud of free will, faith and reason must be nipped. Accordingly, philosophies of personal responsibility and any realization of self-accomplishment must be frustrated, lest the habitual victim livestock meander away. Fate, once innocently thought to rest within the hands of self and God, is now thought that of conspirators. There are yet multitudes to sow and reap for the program to have exactly as many disenfranchised as the state is willing to support. Chained by derision for obsessing about the liberal surreal, the resistant too rot in a swamp of blame, making They who control them emerge as the Eris and Leviathan of their realm.

The chairman, desperately seeking the exit of the Do-Gooder Industrial Matrix calls for the debate:

RESOLVED: LIBERALS, HOWEVER MISGUIDED SEEK THE GOOD.

The Debate will be held on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at the University Club, 420 Summit Avenue, in Saint Paul. The Chancellor will preside over drinks beginning at seven o'clock p.m. The debate will begin at half past seven. While there is no dress code for attendance, gentlemen who wish to speak must wear a tie; ladies should adhere to a similar sartorial standard. For those gentlemen who arrive tieless yet wish to speak, fret not: the Purveyor of Ties will keep on hand at least one of his quite remarkable ties for just such an eventuality. Questions about debate caucus procedures or about the John Adams Society itself may be directed to the Chairman at (612) 822-8941 or the Secretary at (952) 486-8059.