On Monday 10 April 2006 21:57, Michael Hipp wrote: > The longterm viability of democracy as a form of government appears > doubtful. We're in this mess because "we" voted ourselves into it. The > skills / perceptiveness of voters appears to entropy every year like a > degenerative disease.
At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution in 1787, 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 a dictatorship." _______________________________________________ [email protected] Unsub/Pause/Etc : http://mail.linux-sxs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/general
