The "Death of Democracy"

[JTHunter]

If you want to move this to a different forum, be my guest.

Death of 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 Edinburgh, had this to say about "The Fall of the Athenian Empire" 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 in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts from the 2000 Presidential election:

Population of counties won by:
Gore = 127 million - - - Bush = 143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore = 580,000 - - - Bush = 2,427,000

States won by:
Gore = 19 - - - Bush = 29

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 tax-paying citizens of this great country.  Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare...."  Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the 'complacency' and 'apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase.[/size][/font]

[230RN]

"(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.

...

"Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the 'complacency' and 'apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy..."


So that's the sixth out of eight categories, or 3/4. So we've got 1/4 of 200 years to go, or 50 years to bondage.

The thesis is "satisfying," but my opinion is we are actually late into the 7th stage, "From apathy to dependence."

Thus in my opinion, we have 25 years or about six presidential cycles to go before total "bondage."

As a practical and historical matter, this means three more individual Presidents with term limits of 8 years each unless some strongarm dissolves the law about presidential term limits with Royal-like authority.

The thesis assumes that we have completely rejected the concept of a Representative Republic in favor of a pure Democracy.

My remarks presume a somewhat linear time progression of those stages; that is, each stage takes approximately 25 years, just for the sake of kicking it around.

Amusing to play with.

Nap time.

Terry, 230RN

[dogmush]

The problem with Democracy is significantly more than 51% of people are retarded collectivists.

[230RN]

The problem with Democracy is significantly more than 51% of people are retarded collectivists.

^  Yes.  I have often wisecracked that Lincoln was wrong.  You only have to fool 50.00001% of the people.  Once.

Terry, 230RN

REF:
 "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time..."   As with many famous sayings, attribution is in dispute.

[JTHunter]

Terry - I think "the end" is closer than 25 years.  If, as some have opined, Social Security and some of the other "entitlements" flounder due to government overspending, those depending on that boondoggle will start coming out of those large metro sewers in search of "goodies" they think should be theirs.
These "parasites" will be like wolf packs roaming the countryside and it is unlikely that the "authorities" will be able (and possibly unwilling) to do anything to stop them.

[MechAg94]

I recall Suspicious Observers said the politicians are spending money and acting like there is no tomorrow maybe because they think there isn't one.  Of course, he talks about the Earth's magnetic field strength declining, the coming pole shift, and micro-nova.  Or they might just be arrogant, power hungry communists who think they will be in the elite after things change.   

[zahc]

"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.  Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare...."

This is a terrible take that is an obvious attempt to torture the data to tell a story he wanted to tell and his audience wants to hear and won't question.

Cities tend to vote Democrat because Republicans are specifically hostile to them and the Republican party has embraced this as a semi-official part of their non-platform, all driven by the need to collect a majority by class and cultural division.

The American economy, as it has always been and all economies have been ever in history, is dominated by cities, and the tax roles reflect this, despite mountains of policies and handouts to exurban America. Pretending that rural areas are the ones footing the bill in America is a laughably wrong take, but perfectly crafted to cater to the insecurities of their chosen base.

Land doesn't and has never voted. Electoral policy in America is already heavily federalized to benefit smaller jurisdictions and always has been; claiming that the system is tilted towards population centers is backwards, but again, it wasn't intended to be accurate or meaningful.