I remember reading this quote back in my college days…it’s haunting to run across it again as we discuss stealing a trillion dollars from Peter to pay Paul…
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.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, 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 dependence, from dependence back again to bondage. [Source Unknown]
3 Comments
Great quotes.
Democracy does not protect the minority from the majority.
Doug, thanks for these quotes. It looks as if they are most commonly attributed to Alexander Tytler (although it looks as though it’s never been verified):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Tytler
You are correct that the comments have not been verified. I recently saw another blog where the gentleman went as far as the Library of Congress to find the source of the quote and they could not verify a source. However the quote certainly does make one think and hopefully act.
DCT – For Freedom’s Sake