Libercontrarian

Crushed between the wheels of capitalism and big government.

This Quote Will Be On My Site Forever

I read this on a newsgroup the other day - I got chills up my spine at the intelligence of the ideas and the grace of the language, and the apparent fact that it was written over two-hundred years ago impresses upon me that while we might be in an age of technological wonders, all the great ideas about society and mankind were figured out before the industrial age began.

Here's the quote:

"A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always vote for the candidates promising 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 worlds greatest civilizations has been two hundred 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 complacency;
from complacence to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage."

~ Attributed to Alexander Tytler, Scottish historian, supposedly writing in 1750 about the fall of the Athenian republic over 2000 years earlier. However, the actual author of the quote above has never been fully verified nor has the original quote been found in any writing prior to the mid 20th Century.

So, which stage are we in? Complacence to apathy? Apathy to dependence? Are we headed down the rocky road to Bondage?

posted by: underwhelmed at May 16, 2005 17:06 | link | comments (2) |

Comments:

#1  26 May 2005 - 05:30

 

I surely hope he is wrong. Ironically, if his description of democracy is accurate, then it would produce probably the apathy that so commonly pervades America.

Anonymous

#2  30 May 2005 - 07:42

 

All things have an end - both good and bad. I can only wonder if our time is coming at hand; we don't seem to be conscious of what we've got and how we're losing it.

Maybe I'm just incapable of seeing past our challenges to our successes - I guess that makes me a pessimist.

Or a realist. :-(

underwhelmed

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