Is Our Democracy Doomed? ... by Longstreet

Is Our Democracy Doomed?
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I asked the qurestion above because I believe it could be. It surely does appear that is the course we have taken..

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 “Representative Republic”. In a Democracy the entire citizenry votes on everything the government does. Everything! All legislation is passed by a majority vote of the citizens of a Democracy. In a democratic Representative Republic, we elect representatives who vote for us, at least that is what they are supposed to do… represent their constituency by voting the way their 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 (quite often), 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” put 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. This does not include all those folks who are "on the dole" from one, or more, of the government's "entitlement programs".

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.

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 that is what it 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.

Longstreet

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