To: Cyber Liberty; Allegra; big'ol_freeper; Lil'freeper; shove_it; TrueKnightGalahad; ...
The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a warm body democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens
which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it
which for the majority translates as Bread and Circuses.
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 invaderthe barbarians enter Rome.
― Robert A. Heinlein
Gadzooks! Could Bob...
put it any plainer?
28 posted on
10/07/2013 9:18:38 AM PDT by
Bender2
("I've got a twisted sense of humor, and everything amuses me." RAH Beyond this Horizon)
To: Bender2
‘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 invaderthe barbarians enter Rome.
Robert A. Heinlein
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."
Robert A. Heinlein
30 posted on
10/07/2013 9:35:34 AM PDT by
Vaquero
( Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
To: Bender2
31 posted on
10/07/2013 9:56:06 AM PDT by
Old Sarge
(And Good Evening, Agent Smith, wherever you are...)
To: Bender2
37 posted on
10/07/2013 11:17:48 AM PDT by
Liberty Valance
(Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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