Is US Democracy Doomed?

Is our democracy doomed? Could be. It even looks as if that is our course.

First let me try, again, to clear something up. The United States is NOT, I repeat, the US is not… a Democracy! We are a Democratic Republic. In a Democracy all the citizens vote on everything the government does. Everything. All legislation is passed by a majority vote of the citizens of a Democracy. In a Democratic Republic, we elect representatives who vote for us, at least that is what they are supposed to do… represent their constituents by voting the way those constituents would vote, if they were to cast individual votes, as in a Democracy. You can judge for yourselves if your representative votes the way you’d like him, or her, to vote.

Surprised? A lot of US citizens are, when they learn, for the first time, the US is not a Democracy.

However I have begun to worry that our fate will be the same as that of world democracies through out history. Here is something Alexander Tyler said over a hundred years ago. He said:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

Thus said Alexander Tyler.

Do you see the parallels between Tyler’s pronouncement above and the state of the US today? Look at the European countries with their welfare states. The degradation of the US is certainly behind that of the European countries, but we are definitely on the slippery slope back into bondage. Much of our country is already at the “dependency” stage. If there is any doubt about that…look at the fight the dependents are putting up against the attempt by the Bush Administration to privatize Social Security.

The US Government is the single largest employer in the United States. There is something deadly wrong about that... for a country…any country. All those government employees are “dependent” on the government.

When you take the time to think about this, really think about this, the course to which the US is committed is frightening. Very frightening, indeed!

Our Government is entirely too large, and it’s reach is far to long and far to invasive. It has become so large it is self-perpetuating. It simply continues to grow for that is what it does, and does best. At some point, in the not too distant future, it will implode… collapse of it’s own weight.

Then what? Huh?

Something to think about.

Your Obedient Servant,

“Longstreet”