Very Interesting

[Pburgh]

> At about the time our original 13 states adopted
> their new constitution,
> in the year 1787, 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 due to loose
> fiscal policy, (which
> is) always followed by a dictatorship."
> "The average age of the worlds 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."
> Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School
> of Law, St. Paul,
> Minnesota, points out
> some interesting facts concerning the most recent
> Presidential election:
>
> Population of counties won by:
> Gore=127 million
> Bush=143 million
> Square miles of land won by:
> Gore=580,000
> Bush=22,427,000
> States won by:
> Gore=19;
> Bush=29
> Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by
> :
> Gore=13.2
> Bush=2.1
> Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the
> territory Bush won
> was mostly the land owned
> by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.
> Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living
> in government-owned
> tenements and living off
> government welfare..."
> Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the
> "apathy" and
> "complacency" phase of
> Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some
> 40 percent of the
> nation's population already having reached the
> "governmental dependency"
> phase.