Got another wingnut anonymous e-mail. Anybody know its source?

[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.

[Salviati]

1. Response:

From pollkatz ( http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/ )

A map showing the breakdown of Bush's electoral victories into states that recieve more federal dollars than they contribute (Pork Addicts) and those that contribute more than they recieve (Pork Donors)

[nofurylike]

2. is it just me or does anyone else seriously resent this being on DU? n/t

[nofurylike]

6. sorry. rhetorical. gone. n/t

[TrogL]

3. It's all over the place

http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/dec_2003/a_lesson.htm

google on "from abundance to complacency" including the quotes.

It's another one of these Astroturf letters to the editor.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Why not ask Prof. Olson himself?

from http://web.hamline.edu/directory.html

Name: Olson, Joseph
Title: Professor

Department: Faculty - Law

Office Telephone: [phone]

E-mail: PREFERRED GroupWise E-mail Account -
[e-mail]

Fax Number: 651 523-2236

Campus Mailstop: Hamline University MS-D2037
1536 Hewitt Ave
St Paul, MN 55104
Office Location: Law School 222W

You should let him know a piece of spam came your way with his name as a citation on some remarkably anti-Constitutional mumbo-jumbo. He may want to disown it -- or possibly disown the Constitution.

You never can tell with them libbrul perfessers!

--bkl

[POed_Ex_Repub]

5. Uhmm.... I don't know the source..

If these numbers are accurate at all (and I have my reservations about that) the sender apparently doesn't know (or chooses to ignore) that most of his stats are skewed by population density statistics. (How much livable land is there in Alaska?) My personal favorite is:

"Population of counties won by Gore 127 million -- by Bush 143 million. " -- Which intentionally skews the number of people who voted for each candidate. (The way that this is figured just means that Bush won more counties that had close votes... oooh, what an accomplishment!)



:eyes:

[area51]

7. republinazi whine

nazi propaganda said:

"...the citizens living in cities in tenements owned by the government and living off the government."

I just love it when the republinazis whine about apartment dwellers. And "living off the govt."? Sounds like typical republinazis to me, who want socialism/corporate welfare for the rich & capitalism for the poor.

[elperromagico]

8. The "Bush won more land" argument has been around for a while.

The simple refutation is this: Land doesn't vote, fucktards. People do, and more people voted for Gore. Deal with it.

The rest is bullshit.

[elperromagico]

9. Furthermore,

I suggest you check out this page, which breaks the 2000 election up into 10 regions. One of the more interesting facts to emerge from this page is that the regions that voted for Gore were typically better-educated.

The five regions Gore won are ranked 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 in terms of residents with bachelor's degrees, and 1, 2, 3, 4, and 7 in terms of residents with post-graduate degrees.

[VOX]

10. In 2000, * won more cows, goats, sheep, barbed wire and tumbleweeds...

Let's run "Perfesser" Olsen's line of thinking through the 1992 general election:

Entire countries won by Bush I -- ZERO; Clinton ONE
Population of countries won by Bush I -- ZERO; Clinton 255,030,000
Entire countries that wanted Bush I as president -- NONE; Clinton, the whole United States!

And so on. Snore.