Dear Sir,
In 1887 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 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 over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by 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 growth;
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 to bondage.”
The obituary follows: Born 1776, Died 2012.
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota points out interesting facts concerning the last presidential election. Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency and apathy” phase of Professors Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some fifty percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “government dependency” phase.
In November vote wisely.
Frieda Kislinger,
Mirasol, Chapala