June 30, 2024—On July 4, 1821, the 45th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in answer to the question, “What has America done for the benefit of mankind?” then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams replied:

America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature and the only lawful foundations of government…She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own…Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own…

How tragic that we cannot say the same today about our actions over the last century! Our nation has taken on the hue of our former oppressor, and become that which our founders abhorred. What would John Quincy Adams have had to say about the war in Vietnam, the overthrow of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and the brutal murder of Libya’s Gaddafi?

Would Adams have endorsed our shipping billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine and Israel which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of children, with no benefit to anyone, merely to inflate the egos and bank accounts of a few despots?

Not only has our participation in these wars abroad brought horrors upon the people suffering through them, but it is also destroying the very fabric of our own nation. In the same speech as quoted above, Adams said of America, “She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own… The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force…. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

Nowhere was this loss of spirit more evident than in the recent presidential debate between Biden and Trump! The questions were generally stupid, and the responses low-level or outright lies, with the current president displaying for the world what has been obvious for years: he is in no shape, physically or mentally, to be leading the United States at this very moment, let alone in the future.

And so it appears that Adams’ forecast was correct, America is no longer the “ruler of her own spirit.” Do not look to the current crop of mediocre or catastrophic presidential candidates for the remedy.

The remedy lies within each of us. It lies within the opening phrase of our beloved Constitution, “We the People…”

It is time for “We the People” to stop participating in our own oppression, which is always the result of tolerating or perpetrating evil done to others. As the great poet (and follower of the American Revolution) Friedrich Schiller understood, nothing is so destructive of the nature of man than to attempt to subvert the will through force or violence. This is why Adams warned “liberty” would be replaced by “force,” as when attempting to enforce arbitrary rules which go against the laws of nature.

Were we not temporarily blinded by our own subservience to insanity, we would recognize that the spark of liberty kindled by the American Revolution has caught fire in the global south, with nation after nation leaving the colonial system and joining with Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) to chart a course for their own independence, each in their own fashion, but guided by the common interests of mankind. We should not be trying to crush this revival of our own revolutionary mission, but collaborating in its progress.

The billions of people in Africa, Asia and Ibero-America who are finally seizing control of their own destiny, have no interest in destroying the United States, and they take no pleasure in seeing us destroy ourselves. Nothing would bring greater happiness to billions of people than a United States returned to the spirit of our own Declaration of Independence, which would be demonstrated by turning our vast, but morally and actually bankrupt, industrial capacity from producing weapons of mass destruction to producing the technology and infrastructure we need to increase man’s power over nature, not only eradicating poverty here and abroad, but joining the initiative of China and Russia to industrialize the moon and beyond. This is what John Quincy Adams would have expected of America in 2024. This is why I am asking you to support my campaign to represent you in the United States Senate.