Some Heavy Duty Food For Thought...

[Seismic Anamoly]

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At about the time the original 13 states of the US 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:



"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. 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:



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."





Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election:





Population of counties won by:





Gore=127 million





Bush=143 million







Square miles of land won by:





Gore=580,000





Bush=2,2427,000







States won by:





Gore=19





Bush=29







Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:





Gore=13.2





Bush=2.1







Professor Olson adds:



"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this country.

Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."



Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency to 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.

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I see it happening every day; just come into a classroom and see the apathy and general feeling that "the Government is gonna take care of me no matter what". Sad situation but true.



And So It Goes.

[NRKofOver]

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I see it happening every day; just come into a classroom and see the apathy and general feeling that "the Government is gonna take care of me no matter what". Sad situation but true.

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Sadly this is true on all sides of the political issue. The working poor and lower middle classes often vote for Democrats to get something back from the government. But the upper middle and upper classes often vote Republican for the same reasons. I'm not really a fan of either party (and apathy has fully set it), but I do get concerned with questionable fiscal policies by the supposedly fiscally responsible Republicans (excessive spending coupled with reductions in revenue). I also get really concerned about the fiscally impossible desires of the Democrats. Ultimately, I don't think either one is really going to help me personally. All I can do is work really hard for my company and try to make them so financially successful that I get my share.

My music for the disenchanted masses

[questionnaire]

I think we have to dispel this pervasive myth that it was 'the government' and its welfare system that made some people dependent and apathetic. We can see the same attitude from most of the masses in palace and slave economies of the ancient world, and from the peasantry in the agrarian economies of feudal Europe, and from the workers in the early heavy industrial era and from the production workers in the Fordist factory system of the monopoly capital era. Dependency and apathy are legacies of a long history of exploitation and repression, and it will not disappear overnight. Cutting back on welfare will make no difference, except perhaps to replace the apathy with criminality in some cases. We reap what we sow, and it's about time we were sowing a different kind of seed. Unregulated free market capitalism supported by obsolete Christian morality is not the way forward to a brighter future.