The following quote is over 200 years old. It was penned by Professor Alexander Tyler, a Scottish historian, who in 1787 wrote about the fall of the Athenian Republic over 2,000 years earlier.

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

"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200. These nations have 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 selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

wow, that's deep and also very true. Life has become complicated. I work hard on my preception to deal with stress and then I turn on the news.

I just don't understand why it has to be so complicated.

I thought it was an interesting quote, I did not mean to bring the doom
and gloom though. :(

Watching the news can be depressing, especially around
election time when people are just yelling at each other
constantly on those political talk shows. blech.

This is a great quote, and is based in history. It goes back to the notion that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.

The United States is definately in the apathy mode in my opinion.

Of course I think there is still time to change this around. I think Sept 11th has woken up part of the population, and hopefully our leaders can get us back on track and help us regain our focus.

Are we in trouble? I think so.

I used to be a huge news buff, still sort of am....but life doesn't seem that bad to me any more.

I realized that I could easily die tomorrow, so I might as well live life to the fullest, without worry.

Don't get me wrong, I still plan for the future, but I tend to let things in the news slide off my back.

If you worry about things, life really doesn't seem that grand anymore ;)

I believe the Know-Nothing party was predicting the rapid destruction of American society in the '50s. They were concerned about immigration, among other things.

And as much as I'd love to point out otherwise, I doubt Torone was a member. :D It was the 1850's.

I think you hit the nail on the head there, Mike :) I'd heard the quote before - I'm also fond of Jefferson's statements as to a nation needing a good "revolution" every 200 years or so to keep its govermnent fresh... As to us, our Republic got its last press of the reset switch with the end of the cold war... ;) :P