John Adams is an eminently more respected figure in the annals of American history than his son, John Quincy, who like most children of privilege spent the majority of his prolonged adolescence studying abroad and keeping a diary—the industrial-age equivalent of vlogging.
Whereas his father helped create the world's first modern democracy by defeating the most formidable military on the planet, John Quincy practiced law, taught logic courses at Brown University, and like most overeducated rich kids grew to loathe the thought of achieving global supremacy through military might.
America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy," the younger Adams famously said in 1821 while serving as U.S. secretary of state. Some surrender hawks have founded entire think tanks based on the cerebral cowardice outlined in that speech, which also includes the exhortation that America "must forever stand alone ... a light of admonition to the rulers of men."
The latter line is more in keeping with the philosophy of the older, wiser Adams, who founded the U.S. Navy to serve as the country's "natural defense" force and argued correctly that "virtue is not always amiable," and that defeat was in some cases "preferable to total inaction."
This is the John Adams philosophy that will drive the mission of a new think tank dedicated to restoring America's role in the world to one of "responsible supremacy." The Adams Institute will seek to advance the cause of "common good militarism" by changing the conversation in Washington, D.C., and abroad through aggressive lobbying and impressive public displays of military power.
"In the spirit of America's first vice president, we believe in good guys and bad guys," said Adams Institute founding chairman Brock Hungwell, a former Navy SEAL who previously served as chief provost at the H. Norman Schwarzkopf Academy for Preemptive War.
"From the redcoats to the Red Chinese, from the Comanche raiders to the Weather Underground, defending America means defending her from threats at home and abroad," Hungwell told the Washington Free Beacon in an exclusive interview.
The Adams Institute will, at least initially, limit its focus to a small number of achievable goals, such as augmenting existing U.S. naval supremacy with the addition of a nuclear submarine fleet capable of launching simultaneous strikes against China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
President Adams's forceful opposition to seditious acts will also inform the new institute's mission. The organization's charter calls for the establishment of a $20 million bounty fund to be awarded to the law enforcement branch that apprehends the most foreign saboteurs in a given year, whether they be members of Antifa, Huawei Technologies, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or CNN.
The Adams Institute may have bold objectives, but it's also open to compromise. While John Adams would have been "appalled" at the lawless actions of Barack Obama's Department of Justice, Hungwell doesn't think arresting senior Democratic officials would be the best way to advance national unity. Instead, he proposed that Roger Stone be allowed to establish an independent investigative bureau for the purpose of figuring out what the hell is going on.
Stone, who has already accepted a seat on the Institute's board, envisions a phalanx of fact-checkers armed with sweeping authority to monitor and censor unsavory behavior on the world wide web, such as referring to the president as "His Rotundity," "Cheeto Jesus," or the classic "Drumpf." Such offensive terms would be classified as "crimes against democracy" under proposed legislation drafted by Adams Institute chief counsel Michael Grimm.