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.
If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message. If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.
WE LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE,
ONLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE
BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
McCain's Tricky Calculation
Palin is 'change'—but keeps the 'experience' issue alive.
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Faced with a shaggy, seat-of-the-pants convention, Republicans are determined to get back on message. So now their new, more disciplined line is about experience. That's right, after John McCain selected a vice presidential candidate who is clearly unprepared to be president, his aides—and any other Republicans who want a future in the partyare singing from the same choir book. In speeches, interviews, a new ad, and even off-the-record sessions with reporters, the line is that Sarah Palin is more prepared than Barack Obama to be president.
I asked a senior McCain aide on Tuesday: "So what you're saying is that Barack Obama is not ready to be president on day one, but Sarah Palin is?"
"Yes," he said with a straight face.
Obama won 18 million votes, faced countless tough interviews and emerged with a reputation for fluency in discussing affairs of state, whatever one thinks of his politics. Palin's vote totals for mayor were measured in the hundreds; she has served only 20 months as governor of a state half the size of Brooklyn, and knows nothing of national or international issues beyond energy.
No matter. The argument stands.
Here's the logic, if you can call it that. Governors and mayors have executive experience, and the presidency is an executive job. Palin has been a manager and Obama has not. When faced with the obvious question—"So does that mean that Palin is more qualified than McCain, who has never been an executive?"— Republicans (working from talking points) have an answer. McCain commanded a training squadron in Florida in 1976 (the fact that he was not promoted to flag rank afterwards doesn't get mentioned).
This is what it has come to. But how? Before we understand how experience got back into the campaign, we have to recognize why it disappeared with the Palin pick.
The Obama campaign claims that it's simple. "They [McCain and company] spent four months trying to make this about experience and it didn't work," says Obama communications director Robert Gibbs, visiting St. Paul to offer a little spin of his own. "The McCain campaign recognized that this election is about change, and that's why they changed their strategy."
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