November 01, 2007

Democracy Countdown



I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print.
How Long Do We Have?
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
"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 they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."
"From that moment on, the majority always vote 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, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. from dependence back into bondage"
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living ingovernment-owned 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 ofdemocracy, 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 illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

October 31, 2007

Fill 'er Up!

No, this is not some lavish desert hotel, but a private home owned by the family of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former President of the United Arab Emirates, and ruler of Abu-Dhabi.



The Audi A8 in Silver was made for a sheik. It is not only silver in color, but is actually made of silver.

I'm going to remember these pictures the next time I fill up my gas tank, at nearly three dollars per gallon...how about you?


October 30, 2007

Grapes Of Wrath And Some Quotes

"A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody . . . Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."
~Tom Joad, "Grapes of Wrath"

"Our aim in founding the State was not the disproportionate happiness of any one class, but the greatest happiness of the whole; we thought that in a State which is ordered with a view to the good of the whole we should be most likely to find Justice."
~Plato, Commonwealth III

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
~Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1723-1790).

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
~Henry Louis Mencken (1880 - 1956)

"If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still." ~Ecclesiastes 5:8 NIV
* I borrowed the Grapes of Wrath picture from one of my favorite bloggers--thanks, Hermit!