Democracy: facts you need to think about

Since America began as a Republic, here are some Interesting
thoughts about Democracy

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
believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy"
and "complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population
already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.