After watching today’s U.S. presidential debate, this quote came to mind, often attributed to an inspiration, Alexis de Tocqueville, though the author is technically unknown:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse 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, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
Are you implying that if everyone votes for Obama, which they will (because he is the black Jesus returning to save our sins), that our country will collapse? Are you a racist? Do not be racist against our savior.
Nope. Perhaps you are inferring such, which is pretty racist, Bryan. Tisk tisk.
Both candidates seem to be hell bent on giving money away rather than paying down the obscenely irresponsible national debt. They just disagree in how to go about bribing the general public.
WE’RE ALL RASISTS!
A *strict* democracy indeed has these properties. Which is why our Founding Fathers, bless their wig-wearing souls, created a Republic instead. I don’t think all is lost–we just need someone smart enough to pander to the issue-of-the-minute in order to get elected while fixing the real problems behind the scenes. ;-)
The real problem is that we all think there’s a problem, but there really isn’t, and I think that’s the real problem to which we need to pay close attention.
I know nothing about politics in the general sense. That being said, if the U.S. government were a U.S. home…it would have been foreclosed and auctioned off by now. I’m sure you’re aware that the debt clock has overflowed
(http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/10/09/sign-of-the-times-2/).
The best use of our time *now* would be in focusing on fiscal responsibility, pulling money away from unnecessary programs, maintaining necessary internal programs and rebuilding our global popularity.
I personally feel like U.S. citizens want to feel good about their country again.
So from the quote, which state would you say we are currently in? Abundance, Selfishness, Complacency, Apathy, Dependence or Bondage?
@Cameron:
I totally agree with all you said. I think this latest fiasco suggests we’re in “dependence” – which is pretty scary. Hopefully people wake up before it’s too late.