How Long Does America Have?
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 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:
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 points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million;
Bush: 143 million;
Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000
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 living off government welfare. . .”
Olson 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.
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In truth where are we in this continuum?
I shall leave this determination to you.
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Perhaps it is time to discuss the Pygmalion Effect.
BZ
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams
So many looking for bright new ways to bring the Republic down; so few looking for bright new ways to build it up. – A Jacksonian
Plain and simple, democracy is hard work. That said, we have also been imbued with the ability to re-craft Our Nation via the work of its Citizens. The closing down of the Westward frontier was a cause for building the interior, but once that was well under way, the Nation turned inwards and away from the world. We are an expansionist and dynamicist culture and when expanding liberties do so with us. It took two World Wars to slap us with the fact that contentment at home does not ensure Our liberty or Our safety. The Cold War locked us in a frozen struggle, so much so that we forgot how to move and be dynamic. Once the Titan of the USSR melted under the power of liberty from *within* we found ourselves still frozen.
9/11 shocked parts of that frozen body into wakefulness, but much of the icy mass still sits and wants nothing to do with the world… and there are those actively seeking to bleed the spirit dry while some parts thaw and become active.
The 1920’s and 1930’s saw Statism meld with Socialism and the idea that a Government could be *good* for something. Our foundation is that a government is only for *governing* not ruling, even though many want just the opposite. Much of the society on the left and center has become childlike, expecting warmth and safety in a world where wolves prowl upon the weak. And while some parts of the Citizenry has grown weak from this pernicious idea of the government being *good*, other parts look upon them and the system around them with disfavor.
Treatments for this vary, and some you get just by being lazy and unwilling to take up your rights and responsibilities as a Citizen. Attacks from the outside become draining and shocking. The withdrawal of the concept of the Nation State, being pushed from within and from outside, hurts that which keeps Nation whole. But it is within Our power as a People to deliver another form of shock…
Dismantle the multiple arms of the Federal Government. By wanting to make *good* everywhere we have forgotten that the responsibility and accountability STILL lays upon the Citizen. We have passed the buck to deny responsibility and then whine like children when things go wrong because it was not to the way WE would have liked it. That MUST end.
Next is to open up a High Frontier so that our minds and hearts stop turning to these idiotic *inward* frontiers and, instead, give us challenges new and extraordinary and neverending. Seafloor life is interesting, but only so far. And the human spirit stagnates without challenge for it to grow in new ways. By expecting the Government to do that, we die inwardly. That, too, MUST end.
For Representative Democracy to work in a Republic it must truly be Representative. Take back the People’s House so that it becomes the raucous and babbling and squabbling place it was meant to be, not a sinecure of Party Royalty sitting upon firm seats for decades without end. No good was done to let the House choose its own size, and they could always decide, for management’s sake that a mere 50 seats was enough to represent We The People and NOTHING could stop it. That MUST end before it becomes a true chamber of Royalty.
Assert the Rights of States to properly determine things. On using Amendment II to allow the Armed Citizenry to feel responsible for their safety in times of need. On redefining the beginning of Citizenship, so as to drain the vitriol from society on this issue.
The States and the People forced the Federal Government to have limited scope and ability and each and every thing we hand for it to do unwell is a right LOST and a responsibility ABDICATED.
The Constitution is set up to let the Government govern and keep a regularity and order to affairs amongst the People and ensure some modicum of safety so that freedom and liberty may flourish. It was not set up to DO GOOD. And when anyone asks: “Well this is such a problem, wouldn’t it be better if government took a role in it?” The answer is: NO.
Because that ‘governmental role’ is one that passes rights and powers from the People to the Government. That pernicious way of thought is the decay of democracy.
Welfare? A hand up not a hand out, and that for limited time. The economy expands hard and fast, and there are jobs available even with a small unemployment rate.
Socialized medicine? Possible, but not worth the cost. There are ways that something might be done for drugs, malpractice suits, some government employment and oversight and serving as a point of Citizenry purchase. But NOT the: doctor on demand, medication on demand, and no cost on demand. I pay for what health I have left and am lucky to have had foresight to know I would need such. Perhaps that sort of concept is something people should think upon. Pretend you were hit by a bus tomorrow and paralyzed: how would you survive without going into poverty? PLAN ACCORDINGLY as a Citizen until you have the resources to still *live* acceptably after a catastrophe.
In the main, there is little that government does that it is effective at. Strangely, those things are its core functions of defending the Republic and ensuring a modicum of justice. The rest is overburden and needs to go.
When you make an institution around a problem, the problem becomes a part of the institution. Time to get *rid* of the institutions and accept the problems where they belong.
It is those that do not want the responsibility or accountability for rights that will bring down a Republic. For they see no *end* in the *good* government can do… until they have no rights at all. Those people ARE the problem, and for every one of them that whines and moans and complains just tell them: Well, you passed the buck and have no reason to complain how it is spent.
Stop passing the buck.
Accept responsibility to be a Citizen.
Simple messages no matter how complex the problem.
It requires people to ACT as Citizens to BE Citizens.
Actions and not intentions.
Anything else is the ruin of our society and the Republic.
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”
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We are somewhere between 6 and 7… Closing in on a HARD 7…
Complacency and apathy are destroying this nation…
Given the options of Gore or Kerry as opposed to Bush, Bush IS the best of the bunch, but it’s a hell of a note when we have to ‘settle’ for the lesser of the evils…
Well thats all good and well until you realize…we are not a Democracy. We are a Representative Republic with the rule of Law.
We are the first nation to ever try this.
04 16 06
Well BZ: I had to say that I like the way you incorperate a bit of physics in the title here…That is what captivated me. I shall have to read the post now:)
04 16 06
Okay, now I have read it. BZ, Echotig is right. If we were a strict participatory democracy, all bets would be off and we would be living under mob rule and stupid people might run the day. However, our forefathers had the good sense to give us the representative form of government to check that possibility. Interestingly enough, I think that we have a longer half life for that reason:) I am looking at Echotig’s statement as a platform for idealism. Since no other place on the planet governs like we do, perhaps we will be able to fix ourselves like no other country. Ultimately, I DO think that politicians should rule according to popular vote and I DON’T believe there should be Presidential term limits. Two terms is not enough to make sweeping changes that will reengineer our nations’ ills! And if the people want a politician to stay in office longer, well why not? Tough question methinks.
In any event happy week and I am sending prayers your way:)