Silencing The Truth For Party Sake
By Steve Farrell (04/20/05)
Liberty Letters, John Adams, Letter 26
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had different points of view on a few subjects. One significant point of departure, at least in Adams' mind, was on the supposed benefits of party spirit.
Jefferson informed John and Abigail Adams on more than one occasion, that there were two kinds of spirits always present among men, Whig and Tory, and that their rumblings against each other were generally beneficial.
To Adams, who had been on the receiving end to the point of fear of life and limb, these were more than mere rumblings; they were the source of truth being censored, reputations being scorched, and mobs and violence threatening to overthrow the republic and the rule of law.
On July 9, 1813, John Adams wrote one of several notes on this subject.
Said he: "The same political parties which now agitate us have existed through all time.” This is precisely the complaint in the preface to the first volume of my defense. While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand years ago. Why? Because, parties and factions will not suffer or permit improvements to be made. As soon as one man hints at an improvement his rival opposes it. No sooner has one party discovered or invented an amelioration of the condition of man or the order of society, than the opposite party belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it. Records are destroyed. Histories are annihilated or interpolated or prohibited sometimes by democratic assemblies and sometimes by mobs.
Aristotle wrote the history and description of eighteen hundred republics, which existed before his time. Cicero wrote two volumes of discourses on government, which, perhaps were worth more than all the rest of his works. The lost works of Livy and Tacitus etc., would be more interesting than all that remain. Fifty Gospels have been destroyed, and where are St. Lukes’ World of Books? Who has committed all the havoc? The answer; ecclesiastical and imperial dictators, to conceal their frauds.
Why are the histories of all nations, more ancient than the Christian Era, lost ? Who destroyed the Alexandrian Library? Christian Priests, Jewish Rabbis, Grecian Sages and Roman Emperors have had as great a hand in it as Turks and Mahomitans.
Democrats, Rebels, and Jacobins, when they possessed a momentary power, showed a disposition both to destroy and to forge records asvandalists, as priests and as despots. Such has been and such is the world we live in.
To the Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents out there, some of you who sit on your high horses thinking and declaring that only the 'other' party is guilty of cutting down and stomping out the good and the true – for no better reason than it came out of the mouth of the opposing "devil party” – think again. We all need an occasional reality check. It's hard not to take sides with a party, when the party is what defines all too many of us.
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