{"id":20,"date":"2006-01-10T07:52:32","date_gmt":"2006-01-10T15:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simonburrow.com\/\/archives\/simon-says\/democracy-is-temporary"},"modified":"2006-01-10T07:54:41","modified_gmt":"2006-01-10T15:54:41","slug":"democracy-is-temporary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/?p=20","title":{"rendered":"Democracy is Temporary"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0At about the time our original 13 states adopted<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>Tyler<\/span><\/font><\/strong> (a Scottish history professor at The<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>University<\/span><\/font><\/strong> of <\/span><\/font><\/strong>Edinborough<\/span><\/font><\/strong>) had this to say about<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>“The Fall of The <\/span><\/font><\/strong>Athenian<\/span><\/font><\/strong> <\/span><\/font><\/strong>Republic<\/span><\/font><\/strong>” some 2,000 <\/span><\/font><\/strong>years prior.<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>simply cannot exist as a permanent form of<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>government. A democracy will continue to exist up<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>until the time that voters discover that they can<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>vote themselves generous gifts from the public<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>treasury. From that moment on, the majority always<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>votes for the candidates who promise the most<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>benefits from the public treasury, with the result<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>that every democracy will finally collapse due to<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>dictatorship.”<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “The average age of the worlds greatest<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>civilizations from the beginning of history, has<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>nations always progressed through the following<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>sequence:<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 From Bondage to spiritual faith;<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong><\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From spiritual faith to great courage;<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From courage to liberty;<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 From liberty to abundance;<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From abundance to complacency;<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From complacency to apathy;<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From apathy to dependence;<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0<\/font><\/strong>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 From dependence back into bondage.”<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

Where in the sequence do you think US democracy is?
\n<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about “The Fall of The Athenian Republic” some 2,000 years prior. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99jGb-k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/simonburrow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}