Democracy

“Democracy ... while it lasts, is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

             -John Adams

 

I believe that John Adams fully knew and understood the true concept of democracy. I also believe that his definition or description of democracy is spot on. When John Adams says, “democracy is bloodier than either aristocracy or monarchy”, he is right. Democracy is not cheap, and I don’t mean cheap as in money, I mean that you have to fight for democracy and the freedom that comes with it. Look at how much it took to gain our freedom from the beginning. We fought the British in the revolution to first gain our freedom. The revolution which cost us over 25,000 lives and took us 8 years of fighting to win was one of the bloodiest wars up to this date. Then again in 1812, when the British tried to regain the land that they lost 30 years ago, we lost another 20,000 Americans. That is why democracy isn’t cheap. But like John Adams said, democracy does not last long as will eventually commit a type of suicide. We see this almost happening today. As Americans we have seen many wars over the years that were fought for our freedom. But when we do this, we almost bite off more than we can chew. We have military based all around the world and control a lot of land, almost too much. What we have makes other countries jealous. Our people are free to do as they please and that makes other countries hate us. So they all want to destroy what we have. As you can see today, America is getting so big that it can’t support itself. We rely on other countries for things that we need to survive. We are going to get so big that we will collapse. It bound to happen in the future, John Adams knew this. Why? It has happened in the past. And every time, it was good when it was good but after a while it began to fade and eventually collapsed. I had never heard this quote before today but I can honestly say that it is one of the most true quote I have ever heard.