Stages of Democracy
The following was in an email that I received several months ago. I was unable to track down the name of the original author (sorry). But I HAVE heard much of what it has to say before in political science lectures while at college. It bears some serious thought....
----------------------------------------
"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 that 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." (emphasis mine - he continues...)
"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... believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and 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." (end quotation)
-------------------------------------------------
IF that really is so - then the only stage left is #8 - From dependence back into bondage. What might that look like I wonder? Possibly the welfare state becoming openly socialist and increasingly totalitarian - possibly even a dictatorship? One thing is for sure - our civil liberties will become extinct in the name of "the public good" or "safety."
You know, the Founding Fathers saw this coming and cemented our inalienble human rights in the constitution so that all future laws and govt. actions had to keep these in the center of their thinking and rulings. But social progressives constantly want to redefine these rights and the constitution so that it can be "applied" to modern situations. In the end, all that does is make it easy for some dictator(s) to "redefine" our rights and the constitution so that they can "legally" take them away (so much for inalienable). Pretty scary!
What do you say?
posted by Eric | 9:48 AM
12 Comments:
Interesting. However, I suggest this reference will intrigue you....... http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north484.html
1) I have to believe the reference to Alexander Tyler is incorrect. Why? Alexander Tyler was a Scottish historian and authored several
books, however, there is no history or record of "The Fall of the Athenian Republic nor the The Decline of the Fall of the Athenian Republic while
we do find several of his books, Elements of General History, Universal History and Ancient and Modern which are also in the library of congress.
2) The Professor "Joseph Olson" cited as reference? He is in fact a true person but publicly denounced this reference to him in "Stages of Democracy" as being fake in 2001.
3) The reference to the county by county murder rate is incorrect. You can view the numbers from the Department of Justice which lists the murder rate by county and then cross reference those with the counties won by Bush & Gore. (Found on CNN's website)
If you take the entire murders and then divide by the entire number in population from those counties in order to get the murder rate
you come up with Gore's counties having a 6.5 and Bush's 4.1. A disparity but nothing like the referenced 13.2 vs 2.
VERY VERY SCARY.....
It scares me that our freedoms are being taken- and no one even notices.............
What grade do you teach? I am also an elementary teacher.
My response to Anonymous,
Thanks for the data - I appreciated your information and the spirit that it was offered in. Thanks!
However, your 3rd comment about "murder rates by county" must be responding to a longer article because nothing in my original post deals with this issue. Sorry.
Also, as a former International Relations and Political Science major and life long student of history, I can honestly say that those articles, though apparently bogus as to being written, could still be written with similar conclusions by someone today. There are some constants in politics having to do with universal realities of human nature. It IS a truism that once people realize they can vote benefits for themselves from their elected officials - then, by and large (meaning the majority) they will continue to do so. Why wouldn't they? They would have to have some philosophical belief(s) that would cause them to think of that in nonself-centered terms and conclude that doing so may be a disaster IF the govt. is going to have to decimate the economy to keep giving away free benefits. Most people are just to caught up in their self-centered "me" world to do so. Though, of course, not everyone does so.
And it is also a truism, that once you give someone a free handout for a length of time, they become dependent upon it and begin to look at it as "due" or "owed" them. NOW, you have a voter who truly will vote for any scoundrel or fool who will promise him what he wants.
Not to mention how corrupting special influences and big money are to democracy!!!! Once these things are allowed to obviously sway the democratic process you really don't have much of a democracy anymore and you are ripe for a sneaky takeover into a dictatorship. And boom, where did our democracy go! I liked the line of Amidala in Star Wars, "So this is how democracy ends, with applause?" Pretty pithy if you ask me!
The founders of our republic rested their political experiment on: the ability of the citizen to be guided by careful reason and the judeo-christian moral code, the need for a high degree of integrity in elected officials and the election process, and the reign of common sense to guide in all the unforseeable things that would come up. Well, #1 isn't working too well anymore, which helped erode #2 to the point that everybody instantly assumed politicians are already corrupt, and #3 died with the "imperial tampering" of the Supreme Court since the 1st decade of its creation.
Will we survive as a republic or end up in the arms of a Dictator? Hard to say...I guess it depends upon how smart we are as citizens and if we can put the good of our society above our own self interests more often.
Nuff said I guess.
History bears out Prof. Tylers analysis, but even the Framers of the Constitution were aware of the flaw which I believe is fatal to democracy;the ability of factions to use the power of the state to acquire benefits at others expense. Madison warned against the dangers of factions in Federalist #10. He mistakenly believed that the geographic configuration of the nation provided a 'check and balance'for faction in what he called an 'extended republic'. That the interests of the nation were so diverse that it would be impossible for any one faction to gain control of the machinery of government and thus vote themselves benefits.
He clearly misjudged the deviousness of policians.
james c. eaton M.Ed
eaton..
Mr.Eaton,
Well said friend! Our nation has become so much bigger (population wise) and so much smaller (speed of information & travel-wise) than our founders could ever have envisioned. The ability of private individuals, companies, political parties, and special interest groups to manipulate information and markets is much more profound now than I think it ever was back then. Also, the short memory of the electorate has also become quite astonishing. In the end, few of the checks and balances originally envisioned seem to work well anymore.
And yet, as a governmental system, the framers still came up with one of the most fair and balanced forms of govt. on the planet. But integrity and honesty and responsibility are absolute requirements for it to work as designed. Throw those out of any governmental system and you have a huge, heartbreaking, evil mess.
As a people, we must wake up and embrace once more those virtues that were considered "givens" by the founders. We must exert unyielding pressure on our government at every level to practice integrity, honesty and responsibility. We must insist or vote the scoundrels out of office ASAP.
But, alas, it may be too late. Lying, cheating, unscrupulous politicians and political structures have been in charge for a very long time. They won't be ousted easily. Have you noticed that few politicians actually obey the law anymore! If the people use the referendum process to go around them, they just tie it up in the courts (their friends by the way) and pretend the majority have not spoken. I find that particularly horrifying. What good are politicians who won't obey the laws of the land? Hmm, this rambles more than I would like...sorry!
this is to weird for me to put in my project...do you where i can actually get info on the stages of goverment! please
Whether the Tyler-Tytler quote is true or not, one that is not in disupte is from Ben Franklin: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
Assuming that we are in the apathy stage of democracy, is the falling back into bondage inevitable? What is the course of action to steer us away from this democratic cycle?
"I am not concerned about being PC” What does your gut say?
Ryan's quote from Franklin is a timeless one - it's wit is undeniable and it's truth is borne out by even a quick study of history.
Brock asks if it is inevitable to slide from the Apathy stage to Bondage (tyranny). I would say that history seems to point towards a "yes" answer. Cultures rarely seem to wake up and shake off apathy until it is too far gone. Witness Europe's decline and slow takeover by Muslim immigrants. Their wealth and apathy resulted in a negative birth rate - so they imported cheap labor to do the hard stuff and they didn't assimilate like expected. Now, with a massive birthrate on their side, they are swiftly becoming sizable minorities. It really won't be much longer before they have critical mass to start making demands upon their host cultures that those host cultures won't want to make. Alas, neither side will back down at first. Thus, the new minorities will eventually become majorities and will make whatever changes they want and the old culture will fade away.
SO - if America will throw off her apathy NOW and return to the virtues and values ensconced in our Declaration and Constitution I would like to think we can roll back the clock so to speak. However, what our culture is MORE likely to do is embrace socialism and dismantle our civil liberties in the name of safety or ease. We are very much like the frog in the kettle. But there ARE folks screaming about the heat rising and the results if we remain in the water too long. The problem is with the masses - who are too busy entertaining themselve to realize he water is getting hot and are too busy laughing at those funny wierdos talking about flames and boiling. Thus, they usually laugh and ignore until it is too late. But I think it can be done. Ronald Reagan tried to do it and certainly pushed back the tide for a few short years. Alas, no one has been able to get the message out to the masses since. WAKE UP AMERICA!
George Washington identified the problem almost from the start: political parties.
John Adams was anti-party too; the danger being more loyalty to the "party" rather than the country.
Thomas Jefferson:
"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man."
The most important Constitutional Amendment may turn out to be the 2nd.
Let's roll.
exDemocrat makes a VERY important observation. You are correct when you reminded us that the earliest and perhaps most clear thinking of the founding fathers warned against factions and political parties. The electorate MUST think rationally and have a moral center that informs their decisions. If the electorate were not like this - the republic could not long stand. Political parties, extreme factionalism and lobbying money gum up the works SO badly it is a miracle the republic has lasted as long as it has.
But it is pretty obvious to many that the republic is very unhealthy. Money and partisan politics have derailed our democracy and few seem to seek the greater good (though the radical social progressives make this claim - their ideas are speeding up the republic's demise instead of saving it).
We need a highly principled and charismatic leader with tons of money behind him also from principled citizens to turn our hearts and thoughts back to the original principles of our republic - popular sovereignty, limited government, federalism, sepration of powers and the checks and balances working properly. This leader must reign in the federal government's bloated existence and return power to the states. The one who expresses a desire to do this will get my vote and my assistance to get elected - I don't care what party he or she is from.
Post a Comment
<< Home