Quotes Suitable for Framing: John Adams
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
While I believe George Washington was the greatest of our Founders, I find John Adams the most endearing. Vain and thin skinned at times, but rose above his failings to greatness when it counted.
“They will only exchange tyrants and tyrannies.” -JA
Who is virtuous in today’s political race?
Sanders? Hillary? The Donald?
John Adams, pray for this Nation from on high. Please.
Hegel could occasionally come out with a striking line: “You cannot free a people whose consciences are enslaved; Napoléon could no more coerce the Spanish into freedom than Philip II could force the Dutch into slavery.”
“could no more coerce the Spanish into freedom”
Freedom to be subjects of the French Empire and be ruled by Napoleon’s elder brother. Spanish patriots were fully justified in waging an all out War to avoid such a fate.
Discussion for the Coffee Clatch: does the MacArthur/Ridgeway Shogunate (1945-1952) prove or disprove Hegel’s thesis?
Disprove, as did the Western Allies construction of West Germany.
Or prove. If the total destruction of German & Japanese society resulted in the liberation of a peoples’ enslaved consciences, that is.
Ernst Schreiber asks, “[D]oes the MacArthur/Ridgeway Shogunate (1945-1952) prove or disprove Hegel’s thesis?”
I would say it supports it. Japan is a country so demoralised by the loss of its traditional beliefs and way of life that its people are no longer interested in survival. Japan’s population has been in decline for decades and its Total Fertility Rate is now only 1.41 children per woman (the replacement rate is 2.1) The median age is 46.1 years (47.5 for women) There are no longer enough women of child-bearing age to reverse the slide to extinction.
The Japanese resemble one of those Amazonian tribes who react to the loss of their traditional way of life by collective suicide. Germany is much the same. In both cases, their tribal gods of nationalism have been discredited and they have been unable to embrace an alternative.
“The Japanese resemble one of those Amazonian tribes who react to the loss of their traditional way of life by collective suicide. Germany is much the same. In both cases, their tribal gods of nationalism have been discredited and they have been unable to embrace an alternative.”
Complete and utter rubbish. The Japanese and the Germans are afflicted with the same plunging birthrates that afflict most of the industrialized world.
“The Japanese and the Germans are afflicted with the same plunging birthrates that afflict most of the industrialized world.”
But that is false in fact. France and the Republic of Ireland both have a TFR of 2.1, i.e. at replacement. The UK and Sweden stand at 1.9
Outside Europe, Australia has a TFR of 1.93 and New Zeland is nearly at replacement level at 2.05. The Jewish population of Israel, a highly industrialised country with many high-tech industries,has a TFR of 3.1
The USA has a TFR of 1.88, but still has a median age of only 37.8, so this could easily rise.
All these are far highe than Germany and Japan.
Your thesis is nonsense MPS, as a glance at the link below demonstrates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate
Japan and Germany have low birth rates, but their birth rates are similar to their neighbors and in some cases higher.