Democracy Bound to Fail?

festeringZit · May 23, 2009

Comments?

In a letter to an American friend on May 23, 1857, Lord Thomas B. Macaulay illustrates what is relevant today:

"A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for the candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship."

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The average age of the world's greatest democratic nations has been 200 years. Each has been through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith.
From faith to great courage.
From courage to liberty.
From liberty to abundance.
From abundance to complacency.
From complacency to selfishness.
From selfishness to apathy.
From apathy to dependency.
From dependency back again into bondage.

Creeg · May 23, 2009

http://www.newsroomamerica.com/politics/story.php?id=454942

barman · May 24, 2009

festeringZit said:
The average age of the world's greatest democratic nations has been 200 years.

That's got to be a fairly small sample size. How many countries have had a democratic system for 200+ years besides the USA?

punter · May 24, 2009

Greece, Rome, and a few shortly after 1776.

barman · May 24, 2009

Thanks.

Well we all know the primary reason the Roman empire fell was because they tried to use their military might to exert control pn to other countries.

Let's hope that our current USA at least learns from that horrendous social error.

guitarjosh · May 24, 2009

A democracy or republic is only as good as the people who vote...which is one reason I hate those get out the vote drives.

SayHeyKid · May 24, 2009

Of course as the government grows larger and becomes more oppressive the democracy will fail. Psychopathic personalities always get into positions of the highest power and then proceed to enslave and murder the general population. If the people continue to think the government loves them, we are in for dangerous times.