Is American Democracy Doomed To Failure?

A friend sent me the following article, probably downloaded from an unidentified site on the web. While I heard this story told some years ago, by a former managing editor while I worked as a cub reporter in Benton Harbor, Michigan, I did not know its origin until now.

Since hearing it, I have watched this alarming prediction come true before my eyes:

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution in 1787, a Scottish history professor by the name of Professor Alexander Tyler had this to say about "The Fall of the Athenian Republic" over 2,000 years previous to that date.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse (generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's 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 complacency; from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back into bondage."

My friend also included the following information:

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St.Paul, Minnesota, wrote this about the 2000 election:

Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million; won by Bush: 143 million.

Square miles of country won by Gore: 580,000; won by Bush: 2,427,000.

States won by Gore: 19; by Bush: 29.

Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2; by Bush 2.1 (not a typo).

Professor Olson adds: "The map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country. Not the citizens living in cities owned by the government and living off the government.

Olson thinks the US is now between the apathy and complacency phase of democracy although he believes that 40 percent of the nation's population has already reached the dependency phase.

That former editor said one other thing that I didnt forget. He said the only way to save the country would be to require that anybody receiving assistance of any kind from the state give up his or her right to vote.