Posted on 05/10/2011 4:00:00 AM PDT by Scythian
Make the wealthy corporations pay their fair share?
The writer doesn’t understand a lot of things, as evidenced.
Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, wrote the following in 1787:
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 they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority 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, the nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith to great courage
3. From courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to complacency
6, From complacency to apathy
7. From apathy to dependence
8. From dependence back into bondage
It was God who got us out of the bondage of Europe in the seventeenth century and it is turning our back on God that is ending our Republic.
I don’t know how trade or national defense would work without a federal government.
It was God who got us out of the bondage of Europe in the seventeenth century and it is turning our back on God that is ending our Republic.
In concept I agree completely.
Agree that that comment was totally unnecessary and, IMO, erroneous. And that's not why Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy.
We did until Woodrow Wilson and the 17th Amendment changed how Senators were seated. Repeal the 17th Amendment bump!
That could work out. 0bummer wouldn't mind being king.
;-|
Three hundred plus years ago and Tyler got it exactly right. I reckon we’re on step seven, sliding towards eight.
"Monarchy is preferable to democracy. In a monarchy, the ruling family has an incentive to keep the economy prosperous, so they can continue to leach off its fruits."Worked so very well in Europe, right? Failed monarchies led to the rise of Communism and Nazism in the 20th century. Not to mention both world wars.
Do you mean a dictatorship? Like Chávez?
Our founding fathers never established a democracy. They knew democracies failed. They didn't trust the mobs. They had read and understood the lessons of history. When they established this nation they actively excluded a significant part of the population not by race nor sex but by possession of property. They felt that if you didn't have an active stake in the nation you shouldn't have control of its future through the right to vote.
Since the 1820’s there has been a drive to change the rules established by our founding fathers. Some, the race and sex requirements, were ones that the founding fathers knew had to be changed - their writings both public and private prove this. Some reflected the changes in the world. A few were done to gain political power.
My bottom line?
The Federal Government, not the Representative Republic, is failing because it is attempting to do things that our Constitution was designed to prevent.
If the article had addressed this and used the term Representative Republic in place of Democracy it would be an excellent article. AS it is, it is nothing more than a flawed high school history paper.
Okeyday
Jeeze, this sounds like my writing. There is some stuff in the article I disagree with, but the above especially mimics my observation of the 2008 election with the biggest liar Obama winning, McCain gave it a good try though as a huge phony. Even Republicans won 2010 by acting as if they were the protectors of Medicare benefits (ref Obama-care cuts) now act surprised that their proposal to get (practically) rid of it is not popular. They knew not to run on that.
You miss the historical point. Monarchies ran out of steam in a modern world. There was change. Your horizon is too short.
In some places the change process was co opted buy socialist zealots who had an idea that failed. In Russia it apparently happened twice. In China they recognize that fact and are moving in a direction toward a form of government not yet fully evolved
The primary story of the twentieth century is the demise of monarchy and the rise of democratic government. The evolution presently continues
You miss the historical point. Monarchies ran out of steam in a modern world. There was change. Your horizon is too short.
In some places the change process was co opted buy socialist zealots who had an idea that failed. In Russia it apparently happened twice. In China they recognize that fact and are moving in a direction toward a form of government not yet fully evolved
The primary story of the twentieth century is the demise of monarchy and the rise of democratic government. The evolution presently continues
30 replies and the best im seeing are shortsighted nitpickings on a particular sentence, or simply the term 'democracy'...
our FRee Republic was replaced with a 'hungry, hungry hippo' of self feeding democracy, w/o a shot being fired...the basic premise being made is spot on...
my attempts at 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' dont originate, and cannot be 'granted' by men, and i'll Thank God everyday for the FReedom i enjoy, whether 'allowed' by men or not...
we're entering a late stage, of lines that are gonna be very dangerous to cross...tread lightly hippos...
nobody *knows* the timeline of the temporal, much less the eternal, but history shows that we are doomed as a matter of fact...some kind of 'reset' is certain...who is to put the pieces together is the mystery...
“It is time to rethink the Constitution.”
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No, there is zero chance that we would write something better. The problem is not the constitution, it is our failure to abide by it. The current system has strayed so far from the rule book that if America were a baseball team the pitcher would be sitting in the stands and the batter would be trying to hit from the dugout and the umpires would be calling home runs for successfully farting.
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