John Adams on Democracy
by: Les Carpenter Rational Nation USA Birthplace of Independent Conservatism As the world watches the unrest enveloping the middle east, with every one rallying around the call for democracy in a region that has essentially never experienced much liberty, perhaps it would be wise to give thought to what one wishes for. John Adams summed up democracy quite well in his 1763 essay on Man's Lust for Power. "[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." --John Adams, an Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763 Reference: Original Intent, Barton (338); o...