We are reaching the point where nearly 50% of Americans don't pay anything and will vote to keep it that way until we fall just like the old Soviet.Now this is interesting... 200 years ago, well, 201 years ago to be exact (1801), the Scottish Jurist and Historian Sir Alex Fraser Tyler published a collection of lectures. He advanced a theory of democracy based on historical observation:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until voters discover that they can vote themselves largeses from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidate 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 great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this 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 again to bondage."
Doesn't this sound prophetic? Sounds to me like old Sir Tyler nailed it spot on!!
IMHO, we're in the "from complacency to apathy" stage. I thought (prayed) that 9/11 would push us back towards our roots a little. And, for awhile, it did. But then everybody went back to being sheeple again. Today, the average sheeple is much more worried about the phone company running out of numbers becaue of cell phones, pagers, etc., than they are about another terrorist attack on our precious country. A shame.
Your experiment is very interesting. I wish you well.
Quote source (which is worthwhile reading): http://www.ndonline.com/tribwebpage/news/jul2000/728200051046.html