Thursday, November 1, 2007

And now for something completely different!

When the thirteen colonies were still a part of England, Professor Alexander Tyler wrote about the fall of a republic over two thousand years previous to that time.

Tyler proclaimed, a democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the electorate (the majority) discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most privileges and the most benefits funded from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship (bondage).

The U.S.A. was set up as a republic which essentially has been transformed into a democracy.

Tyler proclaimed the average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.
They have progressed through the following sequence:
from bondage to faith,
from faith to courage,
from courage to liberty,
from liberty to abundance,
from abundance to selfishness,
from selfishness to complacency,
from complacency to apathy,
from apathy to dependency,
from dependency back to bondage.
- Alexander Tyler, 1750, known to not be an exact literal quote

Where do you think we are today in this cycle?

One possible hint. Ask a random person on the street what is the biggest problem in America today, ignorance or apathy? A likely answer is "I don't know" and "I don't care".

oo

No comments: