"The American Republic will endure.....

[vsex]

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1859

Should be any day now.......

[raymor]

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."


Today about 45% of Americans get more cash out of the treasury than they pay in taxes, so we're at the tipping point.

[marlboroack]

I think The American Republic will endure Vsex.

[TheSquealer]

Originally Posted by vsex

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1859

Should be any day now.......

Considering he's been completely wrong now for over a century and a half, I wouldn't put much credence into anything he wrote. Even a 1/2 retarded gypsy palm reader on a street corner has a better record.

[vsex]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

Even a 1/2 retarded gypsy palm reader on a street corner has a better record.

yes, but do they have good quotes?

[Coup]

"This quote is from ten million years ago" - Nobody Gives a Shit

[TheSquealer]

Originally Posted by vsex

yes, but do they have good quotes?

hahaha. touche'

[garce]

Originally Posted by marlboroack

I think The American Republic will endure Vsex.

As did the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Romans, the British, the Gauls, the Macedonians, the Persians, the Japanese, the Chinese (oh, wait a minute...), the Portugeuse, the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Italians (wait, that's Rome again), the Russians, the Mongols, the Canadians (I just made that up...), the Egyptians, the Huns (Damn. Mongols again? WTF? Who can keep this shit straight...)

Most of them survived. They're just not worth shit anymore.

[ilnjscb]

Originally Posted by garce

As did the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Romans, the British, the Gauls, the Macedonians, the Persians, the Japanese, the Chinese (oh, wait a minute...), the Portugeuse, the Dutch, the French, the Germans, the Italians (wait, that's Rome again), the Russians, the Mongols, the Canadians (I just made that up...), the Egyptians, the Huns (Damn. Mongols again? WTF? Who can keep this shit straight...)

Most of them survived. They're just not worth shit anymore.

Actually, of the Greeks only some states were republics and they didn't last long. The Roman republic lasted ~450 years. The Venetian Republic (to hear some tell it) lasted over 1000. San Marino has lasted ~1600.

Large diverse nations as opposed to small homogeneous populations always collapse as republics. The collapse is heralded by a professional army and police, fiscal irresponsibility, multicultural infighting (sorry, it is true), elitism into "noble" and "warrior" classes, loss of social mores, the decline of shame, corruption, shamanism, and finally a persistent enemy.

America will turn into a feudal society with a ruling class rather than a king, I'd imagine. We're already well on the way.

[Shotsie]

Originally Posted by TheSquealer

Considering he's been completely wrong now for over a century and a half, I wouldn't put much credence into anything he wrote. Even a 1/2 retarded gypsy palm reader on a street corner has a better record.

Please elaborate.......

[Shotsie]

Sounds pretty prescient to me:

I admit that, by this means, room is left for the intervention of individuals in the more important affairs; but it is not the less suppressed in the smaller and more privates ones. It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without possessing the other.

Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated; whereas that obedience which is exacted on a few important but rare occasions only exhibits servitude at certain intervals and throws the burden of it upon a small number of men. It is in vain to summon a people who have been rendered so dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

I add that they will soon become incapable of exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them. The democratic nations that have introduced freedom into their political constitution at the very time when they were augmenting the despotism of their administrative constitution have been led into strange paradoxes. To manage those minor affairs in which good sense is all that is wanted, the people are held to be unequal to the task; but when the government of the country is at stake, the people are invested with immense powers; they are alternately made the play things of their ruler, and his masters, more than kings and less than men. After having exhausted all the different modes of election without finding one to suit their purpose, they are still amazed and still bent on seeking further; as if the evil they notice did not originate in the constitution of the country far more than in that of the electoral body.