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from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage
Posted by Duncan on July 9th, 2009
Read this statement:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse 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, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, 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 dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.
And now read this from this USAToday article:
WASHINGTON — Billions of dollars in federal aid delivered directly to the local level to help revive the economy have gone overwhelmingly to places that supported President Obama in last year’s presidential election.
That aid — about $17 billion — is the first piece of the administration’s massive stimulus package that can be tracked locally. Much of it has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulation.
Ofcourse, I think there is a spin attempting to point out that there is no crazy conspiracy by Obama to pay back those who voted for him in 2008. Sure. Whatever. Consider it spun that way. More interesting is it instead shows exactly what happens the closer we get to a true democracy as opposed to the representative democracy set up through the federal system as originally created by our Founders, which is that people vote for those who keep giving them that money.
Atleast until the money runs out, or becomes worthless by printing more…
July 9th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
Gosh, are you trying to tell us that the Chicago Machine meister may have allowed stimulus funds to be directed to those favorites of his that helped tremendously win the 08 election? Maybe even some such organization that’s been brought up on election fraud charges in several states?
Noooo. I can’t believe such a clean and well-spoken gentleman would do such a thing.
Kinda reminds you of franking privileges though, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s all their money, they just allow us peons to use an increasingly smaller percentage of it, that’s all.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Wait, I thought the United States of America were 233 years old? Or do you consider the Civil War the beginning of our nation, because I might agree with you there. Seems we technically had two countries in this space back in 1861.
Also, if we are going to take lessons from history, then we should remove ourselves as fast as possible from Iraq and Afghanistan and fight the terrorists when they show up on our doorstep. Rome was much better about dealing with foreigners than we are, and even they spread themselves too thin.
Also, at least the stimulus funds are going to domestic projects, not a pet war and industrial ware-profiteering clean-up efforts half-way around the world. If corruption is inevitable, I at least want a smoother god-damn state highway out of it.
July 28th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Well, with a bunch of Republican governors refusing stimulus dollars, it is no surprise this pattern developed.
Rule #0 of statistics: Correlation is not Causation.
I would have said the Bush years were a much better proof of that excellent quote: The wealthiest Americans, through corporate and political influence had the greatest tax vacation in the history of our country.