Posted on 11/07/2012 11:08:50 AM PST by RayBob
“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 the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
Alexis de Tocqueville
since history is based upon human nature, and human nature doesn’t change, you can predict the end.
*
It’s a great quote—scary and prescient. There is some disagreement as to its author, however.
I think Barry has already beaten us to the punch...
When Clinton was elected, I expected to see a military coup in Washington. It did not happen.
I will be expecting to see one anytime now.
Duck an cover, lock and load.
Possibly true, but not said, at least in these words, by Tocqueville.
I’d really love for somebody to compile a list of “the world’s great civilizations,” with their starting and ending dates showing an average of 200 years.
The Chinese civilization is arguably at present around 3000 years old, the Japanese around 1500.
Rome lasted somewhere between 800 and 2000 years, depending on how you figure it.
yep, looks to be that way. It was wonderful while it lasted. Now me and my kids and my grandkids are in for that last part (dictatorship) and I’ll give you 3 guesses who the dictator is gonna be.
Don’t worry about any more elections—he’ll draft executive orders to cancel them, and Congress won’t do anything about it. Boehner will cry and cry and some of the outspoken ones in the Congress will wail against the administration, but the dems/liberals/communists in the government will watch from the sidelines. And of course, the SC justices will be bought and paid for with 30 pieces of silver, so don’t look to them for rescue either. The folks who voted for him will want him to rule them forever cuz they worship him and faint at his feet.
We are done. Best to get to know Jesus really fast and be ready for His return. That’s the last real great hope this world has.
Also attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813)... who knows... in any event, the quote has been around since the 1950s and is still very true.
That is exactly what is going on here. We probably reached the tipping point some time ago, but last night was proof we’ve passed it. Like an economist can’t say for sure if a recession is on/off for months after the actual date, we had to be past it to see it.
Quite a shame, really. I have no idea where else to go now that it’s a sure thing this country is going to fail, and there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it.
There will still be elections. Even the USSR, North Korea and Venezuela still have/had elections. They already know the outcome, and win by fraud. We just had the first of many window-dressing elections. And the “Republicans” will be part of the window-dressing; a few token Republicans will be allowed to hold House and Senate seats for a few decades, until they have outlived their usefulness and the sheep are thoroughly domesticated.
I think I recall reading it in “Democracy in America”, but it was tough sledding and I have may have dozed off a time or two...
de Tocqueville was merely reflecting on history than any educated man of his time understood. When Ben Franklin was asked about the new constitution he quipped “We have given you a republic, if you can keep it.” The Founders and the men who wrote the constitution fully understood history and the inherent danger of a democracy. They knew very well what happened to Athens, Rome, Florence, Hanover and Venice. They tried to establish a Republic with checks, balances and insulate government policy from whims and passions. Well it seems after 225 years human nature has caught up with this grand noble experiment. Obama is simply a catastrophic manifestation of American decline. Things will get very ugly.
Being depressed about the outcome, I hit the supermarket for a bottle.
So I say to the cashier, an older gal, “I need a drink after the election..”
She says “I know. It’s depressing”
I’m ready to say something but she BEATS ME TO IT and she kinda whispers “food stamps”. Then she says “You wouldn’t believe the number of twenty year olds that come in using food stamps. Some girl was in there earlier that day and bought THIRTY DOLLARS worth of GUMMY BEARS!! using food stamps. GUMMY BEARS!!
These people are literally at the point where they will burn your place down or kill you if you don’t give them their free stuff.
After all, getting free stuff sure beats the heck out of having a job that ain’t there anyways because it got offshored to China.
America needs a real wake up call and it AIN’T GONNA BE PRETTY!!
Yes, I agree with this. It’s part of why I correctly predicted Obama would win this election. We have crossed the tipping point and are on the decline. The powers that be will probably kick the can for another few years, but make no mistake it - there is likely no turning back till the economy completely implodes. It is near impossible to wean a society from socialism that has voluntarily chosen it. Things literally need to collapse before it is reversed.
Most Americans today don't even seem to understand what virtue is, much less endeavor to be virtuous.
Of course, our culture seems to be directed towards females these days. I guess we are learning what living in a matriarchal society is like.
The Chinese had many rises and falls of dynasties, each Dynasty was a new political nation on the same geography. And from the start of the Han dynasty around 200 BC to the present the average length each lasted is around 200 years, and none lasted 300 years.
The Chinese “civilization” has blossomed, collapsed, regenerated, and bloomed again through several cycles. But each cycle probably lasted, on average, about three or four times per millenium. The one thing that seemed to tie it together is the keeping of extensive records, by a civil service based on merit and recruited from all reaches of the extent of the various empires that were established.
“I’d really love for somebody to compile a list of “the world’s great civilizations,” with their starting and ending dates showing an average of 200 years.
The Chinese civilization is arguably at present around 3000 years old, the Japanese around 1500.
Rome lasted somewhere between 800 and 2000 years, depending on how you figure it.”
The keyword is “democracy”! Chinese and Japanese “civilizations” were never democracies!
The Roman democracy only lasted for 300+ years until it was destroyed by the establishment of the empire with its autocratic, imperial leaders.
Most Americans today don't even seem to understand what virtue is, much less endeavor to be virtuous.
Of course, our culture seems to be directed towards females these days. I guess we are learning what living in a matriarchal society is like.
“What makes you so sure THIS election wasn’t take by fraud??”
What makes you so sure that’s what I said? This was the FIRST of many window-dressing elections.
I believe that quote is from Alexander Fraser Tyler not deToqueville
http://famousquotessite.com/famous-quotes-6934-alexander-fraser-tyler-cycle-of-democracy-1770.html
Neal Boortz used to have this quote on his website years ago. He also said not to believe anything unless you personally verified it. I checked with the National Museum of Scotland and exchanged emails with the custodian of the Tytler collected works. He said it sounded more like a 20th century rant.
If you do a search for this quote the only place you will ever find it is on Conservative websites and blogs, never a link to a genuine passage from any speech or book by any author anywhere. It's bogus.
The next 10 to 12 months should prove revelatory.
>Neal Boortz used to have this quote on his website years ago. He also said not to believe anything unless you personally verified it. I checked with the National Museum of Scotland and exchanged emails with the custodian of the Tytler collected works. He said it sounded more like a 20th century rant.
If you do a search for this quote the only place you will ever find it is on Conservative websites and blogs, never a link to a genuine passage from any speech or book by any author anywhere. It's bogus.<
I agree with checking things out, and tell those who send me the often bogus emails, which carelessness makes us look bad. For those who do not known, in browsers like Firefox you can select (highlight) the text in a web page you can to search, then right click and chose "Search..."
WikieQuote states
Disputed
This quote sometimes appears joined with the above one, most notably as part of a longer piece which began circulating on the Internet shortly after the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election[5]:
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 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 quote referenced age of “great civilizations,” not of democracies.
However, the USA is the world’s oldest democracy, at 235 years or so. And there is a reasonable argument it didn’t become a true democracy till the 1960s.
Rome and Athens were never anything we would consider even a limited democracy. To get to 300 years for Roman “democracy,” even stretching various points, you have to go back to well before it was a “great civilization.” For most of the time is was “democratic” it was just one of many jostling city-states on the Italian peninsula.
There are no other democracies in history that have anything like 200 years under their belt. Republics, yes, but not democracies.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Nah. Ours has a built in 'reboot' option... Tho I would agree in as far as the time for a reboot is drawing perilously near.
A clarification. Rome became something resembling a democracy, if you squint and look at it sideways, around 290, and the democracy ended at the latest, IMO, in 83 when Sulla conquered the city.
After that the Romans still held elections, but the legions controlled actual power and made the final decisions.
So you can make a reasonable case for Roman democracy lasting about 200 years, even as a “great civilization.”
Of course, you have to recognize that for this entire period the “democracy” was a rule by a master race of Roman citizens over a vastly outnumbering mass of slaves and subjects. Giving it a good bit of similarity to the National Socialist ideal.
Quite true. We are in trouble when a huge proportion of the voters has no (in the words of Obama) “skin in the game.=”. Another writer, Theodore Dalrymple, wrote that a society that jettisons morality will always require a big government to rescue it from the consequences of its immorality. We are seeing that.
I am trying to be positive but at the moment I keep seeing in my mind a video I saw during the Cash for Clunkers program. It showed the death of a late-model luxury car deliberately sabotaged, valiantly struggling to keep running until it finally seizes up. I really hope that isn’t a harbinger of things to come for the nation.
Thanks. I wondered why I could never find that quote anywhere. It appears to be a mutt.
More elaboration or confusion here:
http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
Most democrat voters have never heard of de Tocqueville, and democratic party leaders want to keep it that way, and so does the liberal press, and so do teachers and professors.
To have an electorate which is completely informed, would mean the end of the democratic party.
What I meant to say was the quote itself wasn’t in either Democracy in America I or II, but I think much of the sentiment expressed is.
I suspect Tocqueville would have agreed with the statement, were he given the opportunity.
There are other similar quotes floating around out there purportedly from Lincoln, Jefferson, etc. Often also “fake but accurate.”
The USA 1776 to 2012....RIP!!
Thanks. The main thing is that it is a general truth applicative today, though ultimately the dictatorship would likely be the antiChrist, and the monarchy the Lord Jesus.
Yes, de Tocqueville aced it - and 200 years ago, as well.
The great American experiment to determine if citizens could govern themselves is, quite simply, finished.
Answer: They can’t.
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