I was on the .50 cal shooters site trying to learn more about the mystery .50 "found" over the weekend when I saw this.

December 18th, 2000
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

"From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.

" ....written by Dr. Alexander Tytler, Scot professor, shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Great Britian. His reference; The Athenian Repuplic.

Tytler's observation on the cycle of democracy gains some small attention every now and then. It was first published locally about ten years ago by Richland County Citizens for Tax Relief. No one paid much attention to it.

Our Founding Fathers noted Tytler's warning and founded a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. When the repbulic was founded, people cooked in open hearths and read by candlelight. Horses and oxen provided mobility. In only one hundred years, although interrupted by a brutal civil war, these free and independent people advanced to a level of wealth and technological advances the world had never seen.

Early in this century the age-old yen for socialism began to take root and the U.S. Constitution has since been amended into a shadow of its original form. One result is the creation of a national government that maintains the illusion of wealth by going into debt at the rate of some one-billion dollars per day.

John Wrisley, Oct.1992

I've looked into this "quotation", and I've seen it several places - most recently in P.J. O'Rourke's [i][u]Parliament of Whores[/i][/u], but I have been unable to verify it.  I even wrote to a couple of historians to no avail.

But regardless of Alexander Tytler's (AKA Tyler) existence, or his authorship of said quotation, the words are true.

I have that exact quotation printed out and stuck to my bulletin board above my desk.  It's been there about two years now.

cf. Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers" [1], (the book, screw the stupid movie), where he (as in many other of his books) opposes the "any warm body" suffrage in so-called democracies.

[1] text file of the book available per e-mail

We don't have a democracy.  Never have had it.  We live in a democratic republic.

The Roman Empire began as a marvelous experiment in government as a republic with two "Consuls" at its head. They kept varying terms, but the ideal was two years. Neither was allowed to make an executive decision without the agreement of the other Consul and the Senate. Eventually dictatorship became
necessary, (during the reign of Julius Caesar)and the Senate was permanently weakened.
The single most important reason the Roman Empire failed was that all government positions and the military were replenished down genetic lines. If your father was a senator you would be. If your father was a soldier you would be.

 In the USA we perpetuate this same mistake in business by passing money and corporations down family lines. Thats how inept people that had nothing to do with building anything wind up in charge. Education, promotion privilege, and power is guaranteed only to the children of the wealthy.

Someone asked Jefferson, what type of government did you give us?  He replied, a Constitutional republic.

That is what I remember reading once.

Constitutional Republic.  Not Democratic.  Democracy is not found in a good connotation anywhere in the founder's writings.  The people are not the standard, the Constitution is the standard.  Planerench out.

Our Republic is being brought down by career politicians and voters, mostly Democrats, who want as much "free stuff" as they can get.
Also the ~50% of the sheeple who don't bother to vote anymore.

i respectfully disagree.  first off, in America, you aren't required to become what your father was.  hence, if someone inherits daddy's business, it's because he chose to do so. not to mention that less and less people follow in daddy's footsteps to begin with.

second, your statement about education being guaranteed only to the children of the wealthy is absolute bullshit.  i'll grant that the public school systems in America are not the best and in some cases are downright horrible.  but the OPPORTUNITY is there for every single child that wants to get an education (even beyond high school).  there are no requirements for wealth, lineage, or power.  the poor black or hispanic from the poverty-stricken neighborhood has just as much opportunity to an education as the rich bitch who's daddy has more money than bill gates.

third, prior the the me-me-me attitude of the 60s, children who inherited businesses generally earned them because parenting at the time taught children respect and consideration and personal responsibility.  nowadays that's a little different; perhaps the exception rather than the norm.  (or maybe i'm just being a little cynical there.)

and most major corporations today, don't pass the leadership title on because of nepotism.  most corporations today have this thing called a board of directors (or something similar) that gets to make a lot of the decisions about who takes the reins and whatnot.  

just how would you have this kind of thing done if not for the current system?  i personally can think of nothing better than the one based on freedom and free markets. (now if we can only convince the people that their money is their money and get them to stop voting for people who want to take more of it.)

Historical curiosities:

A speech was made by an unknown man at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


Faced with the death penalty for high treason, corageous men debated long before they picked up the quill pen to sign the parchment that declared the independence of the colonies.

For life is sweet when there is the danger of losing it...


For many hours they had debated in the state house in philadelphia...according to jefferson, it was late in the afternoon before the delagates gathered in their courage to the sticking point. The talk was of axes, scaffolds, and the gibbet.

Suddenly a strong, bold voice sounded--"Gibbet! They may stretch our necks on all the gibbets in the land; they may turn every rock into a scaffold; every tree into a gallows; every home into a grave, and yet the words of that PARCHMENT can never die!!! They may pour our blood on a thousand scaffolds, and yet from every drop that dyes the axe a new champion of freedom will spring into birth!!! The British King may blot out the stars of God from the sky, but he cannot blot out his words written on that parchment there.."

"The words of the declaration will live in the world long after our bones are dust."

Sign that parchment! Sign, if the next moment the gibbets rope is about your neck! Sign, if the next moment is the sound of clashing axes! Sign, by all your hopes in life or death...as men, as husbands, as fathers, brothers, sign your names on that parchment for all ages, for that parchment will be the textbook of FREEDOM, the bible of rights for man forever! God has destined America to be FREE!"

Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise!!
It is truth, your own hearts witness it: Look at this strange band of exhiles and outcasts, suddenly transformed into a people, a handful of men, weak in arms, but mighty in God like faith, nay, look at your recent acheivements, your Bunker Hill, Lexington, and then tell me if you can, that God has not given America to be free! (there is more but you get the point)

The unknown speaker fell exhausted into his seat, the delagates rushed forward, carried away by his enthusiastic speech. The delagates turned to express their gratitude to the eloquent speaker but he was gone.
Who was this strange man, who seemed to speak with a divine authority? No one knows.

Then how do you explain that NONE of these people inherited their wealth:

Bill Gates
Sam Walton
Paul Allen
Warren Buffett
Michael Dell
Steven Ballmer
David Geffen
(and on and on...)

Does your statement "Education, promotion privilege, and power is guaranteed [b]only[/b] to the children of the wealthy."

Are the above-mentioned people "inept" and ONLY able to accumulate their wealth & power by inheritance?


p.s.
For that matter, none of these "robber barons" started out rich or were born in to wealth either:

John D. Rockefeller
Henry Ford
J.P. Morgan
Andrew Carnegie
Cornelius Vanderbuilt...

[b]'Once the doors to the Treasury are opened, only blood will close them again.'[/b]

My grandfather Hun, born in 1895, and a vet of the 'Great War' told me that on many occasions.

I have no idea where he got that from, or if he made it up himself.

Eric The(ButIt'sTrue!)Hun[>]:)]

"Democracy is four wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch."

'Once the doors to the Treasury are opened, only blood will close them again.'


VERY COOL I LIKE...I LIKE...

[center][url]http://www.am1500.com/garagelogic/tytler.htm[/url][/center]

From this month's Cooper's Commentaries:

“Democracy, which is simply majority rule, is a means to an end, but not an end in itself. Note that the word never appears in either the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution.”
--Colonel Jeff Cooper, USMC Ret.

[url]http://religion.aynrand.org/soros.html[/url]

'..... The key prerequisite to defending freedom is not doubt due to fallibility but confidence due to certainty — certainty in the power of reason, not of mystical faith. Consider Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers of the United States; they were not quaking skeptics, but men of unwavering intellectual and moral conviction. They did not sign the “Hypothesis” of Independence. They were certain that man gained knowledge through reason and that all men possessed inalienable individual rights. And they risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor — against seemingly impossible odds — in the name of those convictions. The result was the freest, strongest, and most prosperous country in history.
.........It is true that man is fallible, in the sense that he can make errors. But it does not follow from this that man is doomed to eternal doubt. By the use of reason and logic, he has the power to validate his knowledge and to determine what he can be certain of and what he cannot. For example, since men possess free will, one cannot predict future human choices with certainty, such as what products General Motors will make in the year 2010. But one can be certain that if consumers are rational, and if GM makes poor quality cars at above-market prices, GM will lose money. Similarly, [b]one cannot be certain of what political choices the U.S. will make in the next century, but one can be certain that if we do not choose capitalism, the country will slide into poverty and dictatorship.'[/b]