How long do we have?

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I received an email that is apparently being passed around the Internet. Normally, I pay little heed. This one is more thought-provoking than most.

Here it is. My comments follow.

How Long Do We Have?

       About the time our original thirteen 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 earlier:
       '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 vote 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, those 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 Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

      Number of States won by: Democrats: 19 Republicans: 29

      Square miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans: 2,427,000

      Population of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143 million

      Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2 Republicans: 2.1

       Professor Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the territory
Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare...' Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the 'complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached

the 'governmental dependency' phase.

       If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Parts of this argument are irrelevant like how many square miles, states, and counties were won by the Republicans. This email is about the democracy form of government. Democracy is a Greek-origin word which combines the Greek words for “people” and “rule,” not “land” and “rule.”

I find the language a little too facile. I expect that identifying “the world’s greatest civilizations” would be a matter of debate, not clear-cut. Ditto figuring out when they began and ended and why. Saying that the U.S. will fail in about 200 years because the Roman Empire did (actually, it lasted about 500 years) is not likely to be valid considering the profound changes in the world since then.

I also doubt that experts would agree that each “greatest civilization” went through phases so distinct as the eight listed above. One would need public opinion polls from the eras in question or studies done by behavioral economists at the time to start to draw such conclusions.

Having said that, there has been a clear trend toward greater dependence upon the central government and less self-reliance in the last century or so in the U.S. This cannot continue forever. Furthermore, it seems to be accelerating at present given the combination of Democrat control of the House and a radical socialist in the White House and a severe economic crisis that has Republicans also turning to socialism to placate the voters. There is a tipping point out there somewhere at which time the interest rates that the U.S. government has to pay to sell its bonds begin to climb because worldwide investors fear the government will default. Having to pay higher interest rates will accelerate the date on which the government defaults. Thanks to the oceans that protect us, we will probably get a chance to clean up our act at that time whereas if we were in Europe, we might be overrun by our most evil neighbors.

‘How long do we have’ email

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