Although the origin of the “Downfall of Democracies” is often attributed to Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor who lived in the 1700s, the origin of the material below may be attributed to Alexander Tytler, or even Arnold Toynbee, or Lord Thomas Macaulay. Whoever can lay claim to the study had remarkable conclusions.
The theory goes “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 voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote 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 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 dependency back into bondage.”
Our country has gone from being overtaxed slaves of King George of England, to a new republic that accepted any religious faith, to a wonderful new country with a brilliant Constitution, to being the richest country in the world, to today over 50 percent of the voters are apathetic to politics, to where a major portion of Americans are literally demanding government benefits, to possibly losing all of our freedoms. Many people now believe that we are now at the “apathy to dependence” phase of the cycle with over 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
It’s not too late. We have the power to change our course starting this November. Our country’s future depends on it!
Dave Goos
Baxter
Comments (21)
Add commentYes Sir
Truth be told.
Good letter.
It is very troubling
What Mr, Goos has said should be abundantly clear to all of us.
"A democracy will continue to
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
I would add to that when the wealthy and well connected gain control of the legislatures and congress and redistribute the wealth of the nation to themselves. We are watching that unfold right before our eyes. $1,300,000,000,000 (TRILLION) in the hands of 400 American families.
The only question is whether voters will postpone the takeover this election by not voting for Romney and the corporate fascists who are waiting in the background to take control of our country.
oddly enough
I have been reading that the 47% probably live in the southern red states who vote GOP. They are the ones being supported by the blue northern states taxes.
I find it odd may be Romney's base, many of who are poor. Of course they also have trouble with him being Mormon.
Right Snowda, and Romney's base would have nooooo problem with
Obama's godless creed, which totally revolves around the writings of the prophets Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky.
Here's the problem for the Democrats, whatever weaknesses Romney has, they are magnified at least 10 times in the person of Obama. Obama, OTOH, has none of Romney's strengths (i.e., knowledge of how business is done in the real world). Even Obama's supposed superior strength as an insider in the world of Islamic geo-politics must be called into question as the Islamic world that he helped "liberate" predictably melts down in the absence of a strong and ruthless leader. Add this to Obama's new campaign of lowered expectations, for the economy, his past promises, and even the upcoming debates, it seems his new campaign slogan should be:
"No I can't!'
Blunder campaign
All the Democrats need to do is to keep letting Romney talk. I can hardly wait for the debates :)
Knowledge of how business is done in the real world
Buy a company. Saddle it with debt. Extract management fees and dividends from the loans (debt) forced on the company. Sell the company off before it goes bankrupt (or watch it go bankrupt if there are no buyers). Gee, just think what Rmoney could do for the country.
scary,
you are so correct! How many GM's will Obama and company use tax money to bolster in the future and present the result to the unions? At least Romney had a success rate at Bain that saved and or added many more jobs than it lost and it cost the taxpayer $0.
NOvember 2012...To deny Mitch McConnell his top priority...
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc
Top priority:
Put American back to work...
Baloney, Chey...
...the Bain way was never a vulture capitalist approach. They were always invited in by the companies they purchased and they always made every effort to make the company as profitable as possible. Compare and contrast with Obama's success rates with
• Evergreen Solar (received $5.3 million)
• SpectraWatt (received $500,000)
• Solyndra (received $535 million)
• Beacon Power (received $43 million)
• AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy
• Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million)
• SunPower (received $1.5 billion)
• First Solar (received $3 billion)
• Babcock & Brown (received $178 million)
• Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million)
• Amonix (received 5.9 million)
• The National Renewable Energy Lab
• Fisker Automotive
• Abound Solar (received $400 million)
• Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM)
• Solar Trust of America
• A123 Systems (received $279 million)
• Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $6 million)
Another email chain hoax
This material--pretty much word-for-word--was making the rounds before the 2000 and 2004 elections. According to snopes.com there is no record of Tylter (the correct spelling) ever writing anything called "The Downfall of Democracies." That apparently was the headline on several conservative websites posted back then. The quotes credited to Tylter apparently are a compilation of various 20th century writings, not Tylter's.
Interesting Fantasy Island approach to business Chey.
Here's another one. Complain about oil companies and how evil they are, even though your stepfather worked for Union Oil, which paid your way through college, where you went from place to place for 12 years.Later tell everyone how financially hard it was for you even though you lived in elite Hyde Park. Become a lawyer with the intention of helping blacks only. (Sound familiar) Become a politician in always corrupt Chicago. Realize that the way to solve all of America's problems are to throw other people's money at the situation. And if that doesn't work, blame someone else.
Who is the real Obama?
Along the lawyer line. He never put in enough billable hours
and couldn't make it. Never wrote any scholarly papers.
Look at his cases. One of his cases was a chicago slumlord
who shut off power for the poor black people in this buildings.
Chicago politics. Obama defended this man and the people
had their power out for one month.
He defended a chicago slumlord. Probably the same people
were involved that he had been a community organizer for.
Who pays for a community organizer?
He was not a law professor, only a law lecturer who in the last 5-6 years only had 33% approval by students.
Some years only 14 in his class. The classes were not
constitional law.
He has misled the hope and change group followers.
Lazy at that.
Comments from fellow law students and the real law
professors at the law firm -" Mr. Obama seems to never
do any more than what is expected of him".
The man does only what is necessary and no more.
A great role model.
President Golfer and Fund Raiser
He clearly lives in a world of fantasy, never having done anything legitimate or productive in his life. What happened to the thinking of this country to have elected him and even considering the thought of re-electing him. Without a doubt he is the worst, and the most dangerous to America, of all presidents.
I wonder when Mitt loses
if he will file an amended tax form claiming the other millions he gave to charity that he didn't claim for 2011?
Southie?
What relevance does that have to anything other than lefter blabber? If you want to talk about charitable people just mention Joe "The Joke" Biden who mustered less than a dollar a day to charity yet claims to be one of the most caring, compassionate people in the country. He is as phony as a seven dollar bill. He and B. Hussein sure make an "All American" team.
Calm down, Tom
Not everything has to make sense, yet...
It will come to fruition in a few weeks.
That was
a really stupid comment southie. Unless of course you were trying to copy Comrade Obama when he was reasuring Putin's lacky that he was lying to the American People.
southie
we all better pray that Mitt wins. If you believe in a God. Four more years of obama we all will be broke.