Time is running out for us
 

How Long Do We Have?



This is interesting. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have

always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see

it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.



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 Hemline 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 in

government-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 of democracy,

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.

Sounds about right.

It has already started in SoCal.

I agree that the amnesty idea is idiotic and self-destructive; however:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp

Re: Time is running out for us
 

Should call him Professor Hyperbole or maybe Dr. Ultraspin. Quite an inane extrapolation of the data, but hey, never let sound analysis get in the way of a juicy soundbyte...

gee, you mean it wasn't TRUE?!?!?

pesky interwebs...

Truth is irrelevant.

fence, minefields.;)

I'd say we're somewhere between #6 and #7

from complacency to apathy;

from apathy to dependence;

Few seem to care where the country is going, and more and more have their hands out.

So the murder rates were off. Are we saying the rest of the Bush/Gore numbers are nominally correct?
Jim

Your email was forwarded to Charlie.



Charlie Rose Viewer Services

www.charlierose.com





Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 2:42 PM
To: charlierose@pbs.org
Subject: The Irony of Al Gore



I have long held a minority opinion that Al Gore himself struck a nail in the coffin of American Democracy, with his challenge to the outcome of the Presidential Election election in Florida in 2000.. Simply put for 200 years everybody knew that American elections were not perfect, everybody excepted that as being part of the Rules of the Road (Nixon not contesting the vote in Chicago 1960). Now comes Al Gore with a very close election which by the Rules as flawed as they maybe, he lost (even after the first recount). Instead of gracfull accepting his defeat, he then challeged the Rules of the Road after the fact. This was the first time in American History that someone had challeged the very process of Voting itself. What is paticularily damaging about that, is now the PROCESS of voting itself is called into question. Kerry veery wisely decided not to pursue that course of action with the Ohio vote in 2004. You might say American Democracy can weather this kind of challege to the process of voting once, but three times and American Democracy is out.

however, the ones and zeros still go in the same columns

Re: Time is running out for us
 

What a stupid analysis. Why don't you add up the economic output of the counties won by Bush vs Gore. You'll find the "Gore" states are basically carrying the country.

Re: Time is running out for us
 

I didn't realize that land could vote. Wow, things have gotten bad. :rolleyes:

OK, you guys shot it all down with various arguments, I'm wrong. Things are just going to be great with the utopia that the neocons and liberals are ushering in. Why stop at the borders, let[s just unlock and open the doors to our houses and say welcome to one and all. Ecomonic output, that's funny, you mean service industry and government. Sounds like you're fiddling while Rome burns.:rolleyes:

Your basic question about the decline of our country due to factors such as complacency, apathy and dependence makes for an interesting discussion topic. It's just that the argument you copied and pasted here is dumb. Don't try so hard next time. :)

I think there were more Killer Bees in the states that voted for Bush, but more really smart scientists in the states that voted for Gore.

Interesting thing is that all of the people saying that the above post that started this thread is not valid, not one of them has said that the data posted is false, fake or absolutely wrong.

Hmmm... otherwise agree with Hugh...

Shawn nailed it once again. :D

Olson is from Hamline Law, not Hemline. Great law school, but this guy has weird thoughts.

I didn't see anything about Pirates in the data.

That's why it's flawed, Shaun. You have to have some Pirates.

I think most everyone here agrees with the premise of the original post.

However I find it ironic that the post then degenerates into yet more finger pointing and the partisan blame game that is making America so apathetic in the first place.

Don't forget sillyness.

and the total lack of killer bees, and pirates.

Right on... The apathy is one thing but don't leave out the arrogance of our Pol's. They stopped caring what 'The People' think long ago....except for the pandering at election time...

Clearly 80% of the American People want illegal immigration stopped yesterday but what are we about to get....Amnesty. Even the wimpy French are now getting tough..

The fallout of uncontrolled immigration.
This is happening in England and will or is going to happen here too:

"The last decade has seen a 77 per cent increase in births by mothers born outside of the UK, with the figure climbing to almost 150,000, or over a fifth of all babies, last year."

"As Britain's demographics change, Mohammed is expected soon to replace Jack as the most popular boy's name. It has already pushed Thomas into third place." Here the name may not be Mohammed but jesus, maria, or juan. Keep making smart remarks and shooting the warnings down, but the truth will prove out, much to our eventual dismay.

YOU HABLA ESPANOL ???

umm...errr....did you read the snopes link?

The muder data is wrong. Dead wrong.

oh, I made a funny!

I'm the first one to argue that hubris and apathy are killing the country. But the "data" and analysis are idiotic at best, dangerous at worst.

Like John said, if you want to go down that road, look at the economic output of the states that went Gore v. Bush. Then what do you get?

Answer? Nothing...the analysis is idiotic.

"Fake But Accurate"

truth is irrelevant.

a very good example of "truthiness."

"And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

Always loved the old saw: Figures lie and liars figure.

Now way back in school, I was taught how "finite" mathematics was ... until I head this joke: Three guys stop at a motel to rent three rooms. New desk guy says "$10 per room". They plunk down ten dollars each. Later, his boss is looking at the books and says, "You overcharged them, group discount this week, three rooms for $25.00. He hands the new guy five, one dollar bills to take to them. New guy walking to rooms thinks" How can I divide five dollars by three guys???" Decides to make his life simple, gives each guy one dollar each and pockets the remaining two dollars.

Now, each man paid nine dollars for his room (3 x $9 = $27) the crooked deskman kept $2. WHERE IS THE OTHER DOLLAR????

If anyone wants me to I'll stop by and say hi to Joe for you. He will be proud to have been discussed here.

The voting patterns mean nothing except to point out that our government is a federalist system and a representative democracy. The electoral college gives relatively more weight to rural states where Republicans tend to do better than in urban areas where unions and city governments that rely on state and federal aid have more influence.

So what? Gore got more popular votes than Bush in 2000. Bush got more states and more electoral votes. Gore would have gotten more votes and won the election if he wasn't such a twit. The nation remains divided along class, race, economic and geographic lines of cleavage. You know what? It's called politics. It's always been that way and always will be.

I can't believe the Snopes guy never heard of HUSL. We're right ahead of Harvard Law School (HSL) - in the directory of law schools.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1181535348.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1181535461.jpg

Pirates and Cannibals!