Which Man Was Right?
Nobody Remembers
I am still reading Joseph J. Ellis’s First Family, and today I found a particular interesting passage that I thought FIT the current political scene today: How conservatives and liberals, “Now called progressives” look at life so differently, and it started way back at our founding, with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.
Conservatives are pragmatists. Progressives are dreamers. John Adams, was a pragmatist. Thomas Jefferson, was a dreamer. And this Nobody Wonders, if the New World Order progressive got their ideas from Thomas Jefferson. 
Here are some excerpts from the book, that makes it exceedingly clear: ..nothing has much changed.
When Jefferson and Adams were in Paris, representing the United States, Jefferson lived in Adams house, and so the future of the new country, and the direction it was going to take, was discussed at length. Of course, at that time, they were both highly intelligent gentleman, and bonded by the recent revolution….but that didn’t last. As you can see, they were world’s apart when it came to how they looked at the world..
Jefferson On TRADE: With regard to international trade, he described his beau ideal as the permanent elimination of all tariffs and embargoes, in effect the creation of a global marketplace committed to free trade, unencumbered by national restrictions of any sort. He proposed that all commercial negotiations with European powers, most especially Great Britain, proceed from these utopian assumptions, which he was convinced were destined to shape the international economy of the future. It was Jefferson’s anticipation of globalization.
(A view still held by Rockefeller, the Bushes, Obama, the Clintons, and every progressive that has ever had the vision of a one world government. Obama takes all his actions FIRST as a citizen of the world. Ebola is a WORLD problem. That trumps America.)
John believed that nations viewed the international marketplace through the prism of their own sovereign. Great Britain already enjoyed the lion’s share of American exports, so it had no incentive to drop import duties or make concessions to American merchants or shippers.
“We must not, my Friend, be the Bubbles of our own Liberal Sentiments.” said John.
Jefferson’s romantic prescriptions were surely beautiful, but their implementation must await arrival of the Second Coming, when all men became angels at last.
On Muslims: The Muslims were plundering European and American vessels in the western Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, seizing the cargoes as prizes, sending the passengers and crew into slavery, then demand exorbitant ransom for their release.
(This still funds them today…kidnapping has put billions in their pockets.)
Both Adams and Jefferson met with the ambassador of Tripoli to try to solve the problem:
“The Ambassador apprised us that it was founded (the beheadings etc.) on the Laws of the Prophet that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners.”
(This has NOT changed, not matter how many times Obama says it’s not so.)
Jefferson proposed an alliance of the United States and all European states victimized by these pirates ante creation of joint naval force in the Mediterranean to destroy their corsair, ravage their ports, and put an end once and for all, to their savagery. He was suggestion an early version of NATO.
John reminded him while noble, the European powers, so jealous of each other, would never agree to such an alliance. Second, the cost of such an enterprise, would be larger than the requested ransom and more than the American government would ever approve, And…America had no Navy.
John than said, “We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.”
John Adams was the senior in Paris, so he decided to pay the bribe until America could develop a Navy, and John managed to talk the ambassador down (price) by blowing larger smoke rights from a hug Turkish pipe which prompted the ambassador to exclaim, “Monsieru, vous etes un Turc.”
And it wasn’t just John that disagreed with Jefferson’s continual fantasies of a utopian world. Abigail had a different view of internal rebellions. When hearing of the Shay’s Rebellion Jefferson wrote, “I like a little rebellion now and then, It is like a storm in the atmosphere.” Abigail thought such liberal sentiments were only possible from someone safely ensconced in Paris, far from the trauma.
Abigail wrote that Jefferson seemed to take for granted, “Ignorant, wrestles desperadoes, without conscience or principles, have led a deluded multitude to follow their standard. ” They should be punished rather than pardoned, an outcome that Jefferson would be well advised to embrace.
(I’m sure both John and Abigail would say that very same thing about the Ferguson “protest.” )
Jefferson’s ‘party’ became known as the Jefferson Republicans which were really the beginnings of the Democratic party, which faded and was brought back by Andrew Jackson, who formed the party of today.
So next time you see Bill Clinton on TV, remember, his middle name isn’t “Jefferson” for nothing. The progressive idiots have been around for a very looooooooog time. And they continue to try to put the round world in their square hole.
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I am a nobody. If the different classes of America were color-coded, I would be in the yucky brown, one rung up from the bottom. I grew up in Naples, Florida and live near the Mississippi River now with my husband and two dogs. I am part of the slowly disappearing middle-class. I was a musician most of my life: drummer/singer/keyboards—but I retired before the plastic surgery flu hit. I have no degrees, which could be a good thing…depending on how you view our educational system. I do have three patents…but that really doesn’t make me a somebody. The one thing that is constant in my life is my OPINIONS, which i have more than perhaps even Carl Sagan could have imagined…mostly political. (yes…my ancestors were crabby buggers)
Hopefully other nobody’s will put their opinions on my site. But, if you happen to be a somebody, you’re more than welcomed to help out.
It’s my Nobody Opinion that Nobody’s Perfect, and Nobody Cares, that Nobody Knows why Nobody Wins, and when that happens, Nobody Wonders, why Nobody Flashes, why Nobody’s Fooled, but then Nobody remembers that Nobody ALWAYS Reports the truth.
You can email me at joyanna_adams@yahoo.com
Joyanna Adams
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Joyanna Adams 
As you know, I am no fan of “progressivism”. Yet I must take exception with your ancestor on the subject of free trade. Tariffs are but one more way to hide the cost of government within the price of the goods we buy. It is not subjecting our sovereignty to some super-national “new world order” to advocate free trade, but rather an expression of confidence in our ability to compete on the world stage. The anti-free trade sentiment is usually expressed in terms of “off-shoring” jobs and investment. The former ignores the latter as investment is what can and will make our labor competitive. There are many more components to the cost of labor than wages. The latter is the product of one more ruse to hide the cost of government, for business taxes are the greatest motivation to invest elsewhere.
Only through a reduction in the cost of government can we become or remain competitive in the new “flat-world” economy. That reduction need not be accomplished through a reduction in government’s essential services, such as infrastructure and protection. Both of these types of services exist to provide the opportunity for freedom to raise the material well-being of us all. Beyond that government diminishes that material well-being through disincentives and corruption.
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It’s not the argument of whether ‘free trade” was good or bad, or the subject of no tariffs, Tom, but whether at that time, nations would AGREE to it, which John argued, they would not.
John Adams would agree with you AND Jefferson of what you say Tom, he just didn’t see it happening any time soon. He was…a realist. (good snopercod?)
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Good!
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I suspect both men were a bit of both. The tariff issue has to go to Jefferson, if any way. The arguement about Britain having the whip hand tends to prove that. Tariffs are protectionist. They distort the market. They are a ‘Tax’. Few countries want to give them up, but if ALL gave them up then trade could flow freely.
We have spoken before about the New World Order. It is inevitable. The issue is not so much one of all nations having a common set of rules and even governance but how those rules are to come about, what rules they are and what contribution each Nation makes to common Governance. It is a matter of Morals and Principles, rather than Powers and Principalities. There is a view that a One World would mean the end of nations. It does not have to. The ‘multicultural problems arise as they do right now by pretending that all cultures are equal and can ‘meld’. Melding simply brings about friction, heat, turmoil and a lack of due distinction.
If they all elected me as Emperor, all would be well. 🙂
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Great article, Joyanna. It reminds us that human behavior really hasn’t changed over the centuries (or millenia). One likes to think of our Founding Fathers as one big happy family, but that really wasn’t the case at all.
If I could make one minor criticism, though, I don’t think the word “pragmatist” was the proper choice to describe all conservatives; Philosophically speaking, the word doesn’t really mean what most people think it means. A pragmatist isn’t a “practical sort of person”, it’s a person who changes his principles to fit the needs of the moment; You know, like George HW Bush and his “Read my lips. No new taxes”. Now clearly, most of the Republicans in D.C. are pragmatists who, seem to lose whatever principles they might have had once they’ve been elected.
A pragmatist has no firm principles. They believe:
“…there is no such thing as an objective reality or permanent truth – that truth is that which works, and its validity can be judged only by its consequences – that no facts can every be known with certainty in advance, and anything may be tried by rule-of-thumb – that reality is not firm, but fluid and “indeterminate,” that there is no such thing as a distinction been an external world and a consciousness (between the perceived and the perceiver), there is only an undifferentiated package-deal labeled “experience,” and whatever one wishes to be true, is true, whatever one wishes to exist, does exist, provided it works or makes one feel better.” –Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual
I think “reality-based” might have better described John Adams. He had no illusions about human behavior like Jefferson did. Maybe you can come up with a better replacement word…
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Wow, Snopercod, you made me go look it up: 🙂 In my dictionary it says: a person who is oriented toward the success or failure of a particular lien of action, thought, : a practical person. Pragmatisms: Character of conduct that emphasizes practically. So both good and evil can be practical? I, assumed it meant good. So, Ayn Rand thought it meant that you fit whatever you want at the moment to fit your needs? And so, it goes into the philosophical question of what is real and what is not, and we can make anything real that we want? Sounds like Obama. LOL! It’s pragmatic for Obama to lie then? Is that what you mean? Mmmmmm I would say convenient in that case, but that’s me. I thought that conservatives like John, looked at reality, and then tried to come up with the best solution. How about…just smart? Of course, like Rand said, we might all be living in a Matrix for all we know…if you go by her explanation. And how many Obama’s can you fit on the end of a Kenyan Needle? I had no idea that pragmatic could be such a philosophical word snopercod..and so in light of that, reality- based sound good enough for me. Would you prefer that I change it? You said a pragmatist has no firm principles? Wow. I had no idea that word had so much MORE going for it. I thought it was simply taking the practical way…common sense so to speak. I want that dictionary YOU”VE got.! Anyway, thanks for pointing that out.. (And a toast to Rand! (Clink!)
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Well done Snopercod. You drew us all to ‘Thinking’ more carefully. 🙂
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Another perfect example of pragmatism in action was GW Bush’s statement upon signing the Wall St. bailout bill: “I’ve Abandoned Free Market Principles To Save The Free Market System”. IOW, the man tossed out his principles in order to be “pragmatic”, and we’re all still paying for his mistake.
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Excellent! Right…that was about the most idiotic thing anyone has ever said.
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