Democracies staying power.

>
> 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 Edinborough) 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 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."
>
> 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=2,2427,000 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 mostly encompassed those citizens living in
> government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
>
> Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency" and
> "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some
40
> percent of the nation's population already having reached the
> "governmental dependency" phase.

Anyone care to comment.