HunterByrd

"Ann Hansen," the purported author of this ‘round the net’ email claims, "The following is fairly sobering food for thought." Can’t say I disagree. Although I just received this from my good brother, JB, I have seen it before. Read it; it is inspiring. Then we’ll talk a little more about it below.

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.

"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 that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes 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 worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always 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 complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

Professor Joseph Olson, of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recent Presidential election:

Population of counties won by: Gore = 127 million; Bush = 143 million
Square miles of land won by: Gore = 580,000 ; Bush = 2,2427,000
States won by: Gore = 19 ; Bush = 29
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore = 13.2; Bush = 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."
Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency" and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Please pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake in this Election Year and that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Yes, all inspiring. However, in this age, one must be wary of information, so much the more so if you happen to agree with it. I took a bright step, and googled it. Sure enough, the email is not new; it appeared shortly after the 2000 election. The quote from "Alexander Tyler" is very likely fictitious, because there was no Alexander Tyler who wrote such a book. However, there was one Alexander Fraser Tytler, and he did write historical books, which touched upon the above. The quotes attributable to Prof. Joseph Olsen are not his (he was a mere recipient early on, and it appears his name was co-opted to lend a bit more stature, and it would appear that the crime rate statistics are rather skewed over the top. The actual difference is much, much closer.

In spite of its inaccuracies, it is generally correct. If not entirely fact-based, it is keen rhetoric.

Snopes.com -- http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp