> > 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 Edinborough) 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 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, St. Paul,
> > Minnesota, points out some interesting facts
> > concerning the most
> > recent Presidential election:
> >
> > Population of counties won by:
> > Gore=127 million
> > Bush=143 million
> >
> > Square miles of land won by:
> > Gore=580,000
> > Bush=2,2427,000
> >
> > 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.
> >
> >
> >
> > Pass this along to help everyone realize just
> > how much is at stake in
> > this Election Year and that apathy is the
> > greatest danger to our
> > freedom.
> >
> >
> > God Bless America
> > Think before you vote!

Hey Fred, since you brought it up, and if there was ever a topic that was OT, could you please offer your comments on the topic?

I wonder who Fred is voting for and is it to get to the dictatorship stage? Notice the article left off who won the "majority of votes".

I already debunked this on another board, so you can go to snopes.com to find the truth. Most of what is posted above is flat out false. But then what do you expect from a party getting scared?

The original post:

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 Edinborough) 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 due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the worlds 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, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election:

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

Square miles of land won by:
Gore = 580,000
Bush = 2,2427,000

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 encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare . . ."

Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and "complacency" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

From Snopes:

1. The population of the counties and square miles of area won by each Bush and Gore appear to be accurate. They are consistent with the election-result published by USA Today on 20 November 2000.

2. The number of states won by each candidate is wrong, but the numbers given (29 and 19) imply this piece was written before the results of the Florida and New Mexico vote-counts were determined. The final tallies were 30 states for Bush and 20 for Gore.

3. The quote from "Alexander Tyler" is very likely fictitious.

4. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University is not the source of any of the statistics or the text attributed to him.

5. The county-by-county murder-rate comparison presented in this piece is wrong.

By calculating the murder rate for each county and then taking the averages, we find a murder rate (defined as number of murders per 100,000 residents) of about 5.2 for the "average" Gore county and 3.3 for the average Bush county. But since people, rather than counties, commit murders, a more appropriate approach is to calculate the total number of murders in the counties won by each candidate and divide that figure by the total number of residents in those counties. This more appropriate method yields the following average murder rates in counties won by each candidate:

Gore: 6.5
Bush: 4.1

There is a distinct difference between these two numbers, but it is nowhere near as large as the quoted e-mail message states (i.e., 13.2 for Gore vs. 2.1 for Bush).

--- --- --- --- --- ---

"If you had two candidates for office, one running on the programs of Stalin and the other running on the programs of Jefferson the American people would probably vote for the candidate who represented the programs of Stalin. If you didn't put the name on it and just looked at the programs, they would say, Oh yeah, we believe in national health care and we believe in free education for everybody and we believe we should have gun control."
- Walter Williams (paraphrased by Congressman Ron Paul)

This whole thing could have been simplified:

The Democrats of 2004 are the "Rob Peter to Pay Paul" party and the Republicans are the party of Peter.

Speaking of Peter...

Let's note that he was a fisherman?

Yeah, a commercial fisherman.

Who says Kerry doesn't have a sense of humor?