In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2012
It doesn't hurt to read this several times.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in
St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million.
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama:13.2 McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned
by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
In 2008 Obama beat McCain in the Electoral College by 365 votes to 173.
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already
having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
