Firewallender // Cassie Wallender

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.

Well, my bank has failed, and everyone’s talking and blogging and twittering about economics and politics, two topics I’m terribly passionate (read: opinionated) about.  In an effort to not get run out of town, I’m going to stick to this as my commentary for now, and try very hard to keep my mouth shut otherwise:

Why keep my mouth shut?  My opinions aren’t going to change yours, and this time of year, some (thankfully, some, not all) people start hating people who don’t think like them.  I like my friends, and would like them to continue liking me.  I know I’m not going to change your vote, so how about we just agree to disagree and go back to talking about Star Wars and web startups like we used to?  I guess I’m just also a little exhausted from political mud-slinging drama, and fairly bummed (dare I say depressed? *Ba-dum-ching!*) about the bailout. Can’t we just be friends?