At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tytler (a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough) had this to say about the fall of he 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, believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "apathy" and "complacency" phase of Professor Tytler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.