Posted on 03/15/2011 8:31:16 AM PDT by James H. Shott
Of the interesting comments about democracy is this one attributed to Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (money-benefits) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years."
Alas, those are not Mr. Tytler’s words, but it is nonetheless germane today.
The United States of America is about 230 years old, depending upon exactly where you begin counting, a few years longer than that prediction allows. Evidence abounds, however, that our representative democracy is collapsing around us, and for exactly the same reasons the statement noted: the people have realized that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.
The problem is the only way it can really be done is not political. And that lands you in prison.
So people muddle through.
As a child in the 60’s, I wondered how the Soviet people could just let their government handle their lives the way they did. Now I know. We are experiencing it right now, though not as much. When your government tells you what kind of light bulb to use, how many gallons in your toilet, and requiring permits to save rain water or clear blackberries, well, that is a bit intrusive.
But what are you gonna do? The voting booth is not the answer. Sometimes you just have to let things run their course.
I'm just afraid that if we follow that course, we'll end up knowing what it felt like to be in Warsaw circa January 1943...
Why do you think I say that I feel like the world today is August of 1939?
The sad thing is that the individual can do nothing about this. Try it and you just become the next Timothy McVeigh. I remember when I first heard about the Oklahoma City bombing, the first thought that hit my brain was “at least they picked a military target”. Not that I condoned it, but it was a “wolverines” sort of thing in my mind.
We all know what needs to be done. Everyone is still hoping for a miracle.
Damn them for bringing us to this point...
I don’t approve of Tim’s actions either. When I first heard about it I did not know about the collateral damage. But even then, I still did not approve. My comment was along the vien of “at least Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and not Honolulu.”
>>Everyone is still hoping for a miracle.<<
It reminds me of what I was just saying to a friend: I’d like to write a thesis entitled “Cowboy poetry and Why We are All Screwed”.
This will not end voluntarily. We will, at some level, see things go down in a way similar to what happens in Atlas Shrugged, only a lot more violent, I fear. At least those in rural areas will have a bit of a chance. Those in the cities will escape with their lives much as those Japanese in those towns destroyed in the Tsunami escaped with their lives, only a much smaller percentage will survive.
America is a representative federal republic, a form of democratic government.
I still wonder about the curious lack of military targets in the building the day of that unconscionable act, even as the daycare center was fully populated. It is as if the unconscionable act was spread out a lot wider than just McVeigh and his accomplices.
Yes, as opposed to a "democracy".
In a true democracy, two wolves and a lamb can vote on what's for dinner. Unfortunately, America has turned into a twisted banana republic where the rule of the day is "tyranny of the minority", thanks to the Democrats' willingness to subvert the Constitution and bow to idols of political correctness.
Nations are created from like minded people agreeing on how to best govern themselves.
Our form of government was a really great revolutionary experiment in freedom and it worked like a charm!
The problem now lies in the fact that we are no longer a nation at all. We are no longer a like minded people agreeing on how to govern ourselves. The foundation has been sabotaged by the left. Kennedy opened the door to the world in 1965 and the left sewed derision starting around the same time and we are no longer a people. Nothing could withstand that kind of attack.
This land is now a disputed territory. Believe it!
>>I still wonder about the curious lack of military targets in the building the day of that unconscionable act, even as the daycare center was fully populated.<<
That, coupled with the quick arrest of the one man (Tim) in the city of hundreds of thousands, and the links to his loose organization just reeks of the fed having infiltrated his organization, but he acted in a way that he was able to actually pull it off anyway.
And the “middle eastern” john doe 2 issue just recently raised it’s ugly head again recently.
Terry Nichols' frequent trips to the Abu Sayyaf stronghold in the Philippines may explain how he hooked up with Muslim terrorists. There's a whole lot about the whole episode that to this day stinks to high heaven.
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