Permanent Democracy
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years.
These nations have progressed through this 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 to bondage."1
America was founded 400 years ago and has been an independent nation for 231 years. How bright is the future?
Ezekiel 16:49: "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy."
1 Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813), Scottish jurist, historian and professor of Universal History at Edinburgh University. From a collection of lectures 1801, as sited in A Dictionary of Quotations, 1989