Selling Our Liberty for the Safety of our 401(k)’s
In wondering about the ramifications of our Government buying an interest in private banks, buying up commercial notes, buying delinquent mortgages, all in order to stabilize financial markets, I am wondering if we are starting to see the fruition of “Why Democracies Fail” a quotation attributed by some to Alexander Tytler. 
On December 28, 1987, a letter in the Wall Street Journal quoted this whole passage, and said it was from a lecture by “a history professor by the name of Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1714-1778).” (Actually 1747-1813).
In 1787, Alexander Tytler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
‘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 they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury’.
‘From that moment on, the majority always vote 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 world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years’.
‘During those 200 years, those 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 selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependency;
From dependency back again into bondage.
Are we going to surrender our freedom for the sake of financial ease and comfort. Has our dependency on our affluent lifestyle led us to bondage to big government once again? Where are the statesmen who possess Courage and Character. Should not the sins of the greedy be punished even if it means economic hardship? Do we surrender our free-market economy for the sake of government control so we may continue to live in comfort?
Where are those who cry out “Give me Liberty or give me death!”
Loving the Word with the MudPreacher 