Interesting...

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution in
> 1787, 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."
>
>
> "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning
> of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these
> nations always progressed 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 apathy;
>
> From apathy to dependence;
>
> From dependence back into bondage."
>
>
> Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,
> Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent
> Presidential election:
>
>
> Population of counties won:
> by Gore, 127 million;
> by Bush, 143 million;
>
> Square miles of land won:
> by Gore, 580,000;
> by Bush, 2,427,000;
>
> States won:
> by Gore, 19;
> by Bush, 29;
>
> Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won:
> by Gore, 13.2;
> by Bush, 2.1.
>
>
> Professor Olson adds, "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was
> (mostly) the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country,
> Gore's territory encompassed those citizens living in government-owned
> tenements and living off government welfare..." Olson believes the U.S.is
> now somewhere between the "apathy" and the "complacency" phase of
> Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the
> nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency"
> phase.

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Yes ... and I rest my case [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I'm happy to see that this professor long dead for 200 years now, agrees with me [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Hopefully folks will wake up and take control of their lives ... I'm telling anyone that will listen ... James Madison never would have stood for this Socialist mess we call a government currently.

BTW I sent you access to the effie PICs [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]
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Wow! The good professor must have been able to see far into the future. Because somehow he knew that there would be a guy named Gray Davis that would rule the empire of Kaliphornya, and lead them into poverty by way of apathy and dependancy, then sit back and watch it all colapse.
But alas! another has de-throned this terrible dictator and is working to free the people of poverty and dependancy, but it is a tough road....an up hill battle, and many people will still have to sacrifice a lot just to help get the empire back on track.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Sir Winston Churchill

I read a gov't report today that stated since 1997 we have lost 2.9 billion jobs. 2,900,000,000! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img] It's too late, we're screwed!
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ummmm.......spongebob is on again guys.

Hmmm ... according the info I have at hand the total American population is right at about 300 Million.

Is it possible to lose ten times more jobs than the entire population of the country??[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_confused.gif[/img]
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Yes. People have more than one job. I know quite a few people that have had numerous jobs in the last 10 years. I have had 3 in the last 4. That's the total lost, not the total amount of people displaced.
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In that case the term "Lost" may be a little off the mark ...


It would include those who simply left the work force for personal reasons, those who moved up in life to better jobs, etc etc???

Is the reference implying that those jobs were lost and the "job task" it's self, just plain disappeared?

As an example ... I left the "traditional" work force in 1996. I started my own company and now provide the citizens in Las Vegas with a service and am an entire new tax paying entity. Through the purchase of and maintenence of my equiptment and the consumption of my needed supplies I provide new growth to the economy.

Anyway, it just seems to me that number is implying something more than what is real.

_________________
[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0SQAHAx4XCm*K9I!SL0pJUnLkQYNtipgRhoOVVECK07Ggr6UCf PKaTXQFXCP9wN1RVIZilO2B6c9osZl2HgC5kDN45qoEfamc5ii bZ40m3VIHCzeuvrbabQ/montsr.bmp[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Monstermach on 2/17/04 10:27pm ]</font>

I would love to see how James Madison would handle the millions of illegal aliens that have flooded into to America and work for slave wages and rich corporate America closing the factories down that paid fair wages then opening them up outside the country for those same slave wages(and the federal government does nothing about it because they are bought and paid for and run by the same). Soon the tax base will shrink to critical levels(already there for the most part) and deficits will begin to sky rocket.(starting to see that now because we have no money for even the smallest adventures in nation building...this is unfolding now). Soon there will be no money to power this hungry beast(normally called the "industrial military complex"...except the "industrial" part is long gone). The "dumbing down" of America has begun. BTW Gore won the popular vote and Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court. I hope the next election happens the way James Madison(and the rest of the founding fathers intended) or "of the people...by the people" will truly be meaningless words.

Tim West
independent voter

"real Americans vote"
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