[rayiner]

The founders' conception of "freedom" was different than the modern "anything goes" version. It was closer to the idea that moral and disciplined people could be trusted with freedom. As John Adams said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

[trumpdong]

And people can't be trusted to uphold the constitution if they watch porn?

[rayiner]

I think John Adams would have said "no." Not only because of the prurient aspect, but the lack of self control it implies. But my point was more that “freedom” as it is understood in the american canon is a narrower concept that in post-modern liberalism.

[TimorousBestie]

Adams had many disagreements with Franklin over matters of state, culture, and once famously over whether the window should be left open at night, but I can find no evidence of Adams saying that Franklin’s well-known whoring disqualified him from the practice of statecraft, let alone citizenship. He had plenty of praise for Franklin, in fact.

Here are some collected anecdotes, including Adams delighting in an explicit caricature he saw passed around at a dinner in France that portrayed Franklin with a female personification of America.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20090161?seq=9

Also therein:

> Thus, while certainly not a roué, Adams-though he may have envied Franklin's flair for the courtly graces, and may have frowned slightly upon Franklin's way with the ladies-does not really seem to have felt much indignation toward the sage's somewhat uninhibited private life, and neither of these things can be interpreted as being decisive factors in turning Adams against Franklin.