“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years.
These nations have progressed through this sequence:
from bondage to spiritual faith
from spiritual faith to great 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 Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)”
The above was from the web site goofigure.com. It was sent to me by former Lake Worth Commissioner, Scott Maxwell and I thought it was extremely interesting.
Right now with the recent $700 billion bailout, with the main purpose of unclogging the credit markets--passed in the Senate and now in the hands of the House to vote on an updated version by today--we are at the Apathy to Dependency stage of the democracy cycle. Also, our country is officially 232 years in existence. That means we have survived 32 years over the world’s average. That’s like saying “she lived to the age of 90”…10 years past life expectancy. The absolute fact of life is that we all die and according to the stats, so do democracies, a supreme power held completely by the people under an electorate system.
The oldest Democracies:
The government is subsidizing farmers for not growing food; corporations are outsourcing jobs to make more profits; CEO’s are robbing the shareholders blind with corporate packages that are so far out of line it makes you sick, citizens apply for disability when they are physically fine, and the list goes on. Mortgage lenders and financial institutions are the direct cause of this latest crisis. The average citizen has to take a lot of the blame when he buys a house he can’t afford, buys an expensive car, buys designer jeans and charges everything to credit cards, maxing them out, and perhaps even filing bankruptcy. The government putting other priorities before
We all have to pay for this financial crisis caused by dishonesty and greed. The question is, can greed be stopped and can we change the culture of this democracy? It might take tough times to shake us back to reality. It very well could be the difference of our survival.
