How long do we have?

Question

About the time our original 13 states adapted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scotish 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 a bout 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 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 illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Answer 1

What we have going for us that the Athenians didn't is a highly educated electorate, like yourself and others. Just because democracy in the past failed, that doesn't destine the US to fail.
Education will keep the populace vigilant. America will succeed where all other democracies have failed because it's the only democracy established based on the freedom and equality of all people, not just an elite few.
I, for one, do not consider myself complacent nor apathetic. Do you? I don't think a single person on this forum, liberal and conservative alike, is neither complacent nor apathetic. Everyone seems quite spirited to me.

Answer 2

I would say we are closer to #7 from apathy to dependence.

I am not sure if the illegals will beat the islamofascists to the carcass though.

Start hoarding ammo.