The Original of this Post was removed by a Dictator!

The Original:

Democracy is Temporary in Nature...

Thucydides, author of History of the Pelopennesian War, described the fall of the lazy, hedonistic Athenian democracy. About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution, 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 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:

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."
   

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency & 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.

Apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

While you're pondering all that, here's the obligatory post-ending sizzle:

_____________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:05:54 -0400
Subject: Your Post
From: "Slag" poekicker@gmail.com
To: "N--- M---" m---1-----@y----.com

Your post about America's slide into apathy, just before our inevitable bondage at the hands of a dictatorship was borderline. Your follow-up comment re-visiting the results of the 2000 presidential election sent it over the edge. I removed it.

Rise up complacent Hubbub Contributors and readers! Fight The Hubbub Dictatorship! Stop the slide now! Slag is a megalomaniac with too much absolute power who thinks his two legs are better! And we all know where that leads.