I
have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is
interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we
deserve it.

How
Long Do We Have?

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: Democrats: 19 Republicans:
29

Square
miles of land won by: Democrats: 580,000 Republicans:
2,427,000

Population
of counties won by: Democrats: 127 million Republicans: 143
million

Murder
rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Democrats: 13.2
Republicans: 2.1

Professor
Olson adds: 'In aggregate, the map of the
territory Republican won was mostly the land owned
by the taxpaying citizens of this great country.
Democrat 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.