This is interesting

[jerryrlitton]

In 1887 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 over 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, 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."

The Obituary follows:



Born 1776, Died 2012

It doesn't hurt to read this several times.



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



Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2

McCain: 2.1



Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.



Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low income 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.






This is truly scary! Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. Someone should point this out to Obama. Of course we know he and too many others pay little attention to The Constitution. There couldn't be more at stake than on Nov 2012.

[RAGNAR]

Originally Posted by jerryrlitton

Of course we are not a democracy, we are a Constitutional Republic. Someone should point this out to Obama.

He knows. He made a name for himself by claiming that the Constitution is flawed because it doesn't allow for wealth redistribution and other tyrant practices, offering no argument for either redistribution or the other powers he thought a government ought to have.

[bwalker42]

As usual Jerry, your input is accurate, and precious!

May God's favorite choicest blessings be yours forever!

[erps]

I've seen versions of this email floating around and I don't believe the professor made the claims attributed to him, according to Snopes.

The observations on the life span of a democracy were interesting though.

[SloopJonB]

Originally Posted by jerryrlitton

Born 1776, Died 2012

In this context, the U.S. didn't really start until the Spanish American war - that was the real start of your being the uncontested world power so you still have until the end of the Century.

Originally Posted by jerryrlitton

Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000

Not a very meaningful number - following that logic, the Canadian member from the Northwest Territories should be a real winner - they have a few million sq. miles..... and a few thousand people.

I don't think anyone will be surprised that Obama won in the urban areas. Correct me if I'm wrong but that is where the largest population of Dems are to be found.

[jackdale]

snopes.com: The Fall of the Athenian Republic

http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html

Another case of a heavily doctored document.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by bwalker42

As usual Jerry, your input is accurate, and precious!

May God's favorite choicest blessings be yours forever!

Brenda you got suckered in with the usual suspects.

The posting is false.

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by erps

I've seen versions of this email floating around and I don't believe the professor made the claims attributed to him, according to Snopes.

The observations on the life span of a democracy were interesting though.

Your suspicions are correct; another viral and false email.

And that is where the vice of misattribution lies. Perhaps the words speak the truth of democratic governments; or perhaps they do not. But either way, attributing the words to a scholar who never spoke them is to lend to them an authority and reliability that they do not deserve. Quotations should not be given fictitious attributions merely to lend credence to the messages they impart. To do so is to favor persuasiveness over accuracy, and to sacrifice truth for the sake of image.

The Truth About Tytler

[jackdale]

I really enjoyed one recent message that was circulated extremely widely, at least among conservatives. It gave several interesting "facts" supposedly compiled by statisticians and political scientists about the counties across the nation that voted for George Bush and the ones that voted for Al Gore in the recent election.

Supposedly, the people in the counties for Bush had more education, more income, ad infinitum, than the counties for Gore.

I didn't have time to check them all out, but I was curious about one item in particular... the contention that the murder rate in the Gore counties was about a billion times higher than in the Bush counties.

This was attributed to a Professor Joseph Olson at the Hamline University School of Law. I never heard of such a university, but went online and found it. And Prof. Olson does exist.

"Now I'm getting somewhere," I thought.

But in response to my e-mail, Olson said the "research" was attributed to him erroneously. He said it came from a Sheriff Jay Printz in Montana. I e-mailed Sheriff Printz, and guess what? He didn't do the research either, and didn't remember who had e-mailed it to him.

In other words, he got the same legend e-mailed to him and passed it on to Olson without checking it out, and when Olson passed it on, someone thought it sounded better if a law professor had done the research, and so it grew.

Who knows where it originally came from, but it's just not true.

All of which leads me to a very simple plea. Conservatives, libertarians and Republicans, it doesn't help the cause when we use false information to support an otherwise logical argument. It hurts it.

Don't pass this stuff along unless it comes from a verifiable source.

Don't believe, or pass on, all you read

[tdw]

Something of an understatement Ray.

Sorry Jerry but this is just another cut and paste job of an email that is in most respects complete and utter tosh.

According to Snopes the figures it wasn't even originally Obama v McCain but Gore v Bush and they i.e Snopes rate it as "Mostly False".

snopes.com: The Fall of the Athenian Republic

also

The Mythical Alexander Tyler and His Theory of Democracy by Gary North