68Camaro wrote:For those of you that believe the USA can survive anything, consider this below, again, which has been around in emails. If you've seen it, worth a repeat read. If not, keep this in mind:
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"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 that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
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.
Preceding the good Dr. Tyler by 37 years was the Frenchman, Frederic Bastiat, who warned the Socialists in his country of the folly of their actions. Unfortunately, he was ignored. Only history has proven him (and others correct). Bastiat described the many forms of "legal plunder" which are proposed by government officials: tariffs, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, minimum wages, free credit, etc. In our day, Obama describes these as: spread the wealth. It is simply using the power of government to take from one and give to another. If you or I did it, it would be called theft no matter how good our intentions.
Bastiat's short essay, The Law, and our relationship with government all boils down to this: "The question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:
1. The few plunder the many.
2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. Nobody plunders anybody.
We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. (end quote)
If the population can vote themselves benefits from the government, they will. They will! It's human nature. They simply will. Our Founding Fathers were wise to limit the franchise to land owners. They knew that citizens who have no stake in the economy will gladly vote themselves benefits from the productive portion of society. The strength of the Constitution is what has allowed the United States to exist as long as it has. But that strength has been chipped away via amendments and executive orders, by agency regulations and the accumulation of power in government until our nation can hardly stand. The Federal Reserve has destroyed our currency. So, yeah, I don't know if we've got 1 year or 5, but this cannot continue and Americans still stand up at the beginning of sporting events and sing, "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
As for our military strength, it's on a continuum, not static. Are we getting stronger? Weaker? Do we still have the will to use our nuclear weapons? Who among you really knows the answers to these questions? (For the record, I am against the use of our nuclear arsenal. I hate war and believe it should only be taken up, grudgingly, for defensive purposes, after much deliberation and negotiation.)
