Got another wingnut anonymous e-mail. Anybody know its source? [View All]

[SodoffBush]

I ran the title (grammar errors and all) through Urban Legends but came up with zero.


Democracies Fatal Flaw

=======================

Beware of Politicians bearing gifts. At about the time our original 13
states adopted their new constitution in 1787, a Scottish history professor by the
name of Professor Alexander Tyler had this to say about "The Fall of the
Athenian Republic" over 2,000 years previous to that date:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse
(generous gifts) from the public treasury. From that moment on, the
majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public
treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose
fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship"

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred
years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:"

From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual 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.

Having read what Professor Tyler had to say, now read the following and see
what Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,
Minnesota, wrote about the 2000 Presidential election between Al Gore and
George Bush.

Population of counties won by Gore 127 million -- by Bush 143 million.

Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000 -- by Bush 2,427,000.

States won by Gore 19 -- by Bush 29.

Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 -- by Bush 2.1
(not a typo).

Professor Olson adds: "The map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the
land owned by the people of this great country. NOT the citizens living in
cities in tenements owned by the government and living off the government."

Professor Olson thinks the US is now between the apathy and complacency
phase of democracy although he believes that 40 percent of the nation's population
has already reached the dependency phase.