[Kozak]

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the Plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader the barbarians enter Rome.... Mine was a lovely world till the parasites took over.

Robert Heinlein

[Noumenon]

Another great Heinlein quote: “You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don’t ever count on having both at once.”

[El Gato]

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy

Which is why our founders did not set up a democracy. They set up government of limited powers, to be run by elected representatives of the people and the states. They called it a Republic.