This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.
How Long Do We Have?
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
"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, those 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"
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
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 taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.
http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2008/10/cop-how-long-do-we-have.html
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
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read more blogs!
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kywonder
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Nov 6 @ 8:01AM
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That is just plain scary goatman.
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observed50
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Nov 6 @ 8:10AM
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As with so many emailed pieces of 'information', it is always a good idea to check out and see if this seemingly interesting, alarming, or whatever kind of information is real.
So often, material being forwarded through networks related through ideology-political beliefs is suspect at best...and often simply a fabrication to rouse the believers.
This emailed info has been moving through the net since around 2000. I remembered seeing it before. Check out Snopes for a good analysis of the material in the email.
Basically, Tyler is real, the quote is not. In other words, the breakdown of the society. You can almost feel its inauthenticity grounded in ideology by the language in the stages.
Professor Olson at Hamline exists, but is not the source of any of the quotes attributed to him. He pushed it off to the source of email to him, a sheriff somewhere, and he didn't know the sources either of the quotes.
The murder rates are way out of line. Snopes points out that the actual murder rates in those counties was Gore - 6.5, and Bush - 4.1, a difference of significance, but nothing as wild as the email's assertions.
It is just good policy to do one's own research to check out the claims made in emails that are circulated amongst believers of any kind. Too many people have too much time on their hands and create these things, knowing most people simply take them at face value, and don't do the research to verify the claims.
In this day and age of the web, it's so easy to sell untruths...
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sloriver
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Nov 6 @ 9:17AM
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Whether the quotes are right or wrong, whether the murder rates are accurate, is all of no importance. The truth of the theory is scary enough without proof. The fact is, the American people have been voting themselves candy and running up a deficit that has become unmanageable. The interest on the national debt eats up half of the taxes we pay each year and the interest bill is growing. Tax cuts might sound good but they just add to the deficit and ultimately hasten the end of democracy. We've gone from a lender nation to a debtor nation in 30 years. We're borrowing money from China now. How long can this go on? Not very long. Another ten to twenty years of this and the US is bankrupt, the dollar is worthless, and banks will fail in earnest. The great depression will seem like good times. Am I alarmist? Yep......I'm alarmed.
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