"Something to think about" redux

A while back, I put up a post titled “Something to think about.” (See second previous post below.) What I wanted you think about and comment on was this widely attributed quote:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have 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 dependence; from dependency back to bondage.”

The response was underwhelming. Only four Constant Readers bothered to put in their two cents’ worth. However, those responses were thoughtful and well-reasoned. I was reminded that America is a republic, a nation of laws. (That was a matter of semantics in the context of the quote.) I was also taken to task on the inherent moral goodness of the majority of American people, and my apparent lack of faith in that goodness. Sorry about that; I’ve become a bit more cynical since The Red Herring was elected. However, the traditional $100 bill is back under the paperweight on my desk, pending the outcome of the 2010 elections. Anyone want to go even money with me that the people won’t be turning a lot of these incumbent bastards out to pasture next year?

In “Something to think about” I promised to give my humble opinion as to where we are in the transitional phases from bondage back into bondage. Here is my analysis of what the quote means, with my thoughts in boldface:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government...[This nation] has progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith—this would be America’s transition from a collection of English colonies into a unified people; the faith of The Founding Fathers is abundantly obvious in everything they wrote and said—from spiritual faith to great courage—it was the spiritual faith of the colonists that gave them the courage to revolt against England and break away, forming a nation unique in the history of mankind—from courage to liberty—this would cover much of our early history, from defending our sovereignty in the War of 1812, to becoming irrevocably unified after the War Between the States, all the way to liberating millions of people during and following World War II—from liberty to abundance—following War II, America grew from an isolated “sleeping giant” into the most powerful nation on earth, not through military conquest and oppression of our enemies, but by promoting our principles of liberty and democracy—from abundance to selfishness—from post-War II until the early 1970s, the great abundance of our burgeoning power, coupled with societal changes and disillusionment with the status quo brought us to the “Me Generation” mentality of the disco era through the ‘80s and early ‘90s—from selfishness to complacency—and who could epitomize pre-9/11 complacency better than the Clintons, with their Hillary Care, midnight basketball, and refusal to deal with the growing terrorist threats? George W. was elected as a kind of caretaker president; no one expected great or dynamic things from him, until the world shifted on its axis nine months after his inauguration—from complacency to apathy—after the immediate flashback of great courage and unity following 9/11, we slipped into turmoil, divisiveness, and polarization surpassed only by the upheavals of the Vietnam generation, to the point that everyone grew weary and fell prey to ignorance, apathy, and indifference: “I don’t know, I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter anyway.”—from apathy to dependence—in our apathy and weariness, the American people were hoodwinked into electing one of our greatest frauds of modern times; a president and congress whose principles—such as they are—are totally antipathetic to the values, faith and courage this country was founded upon. Now we find ourselves becoming totally dependent upon this unresponsive, uncaring government to support us in every aspect our lives, from the cradle to grave and all points in between—from dependency back to bondage.”

We already have a shadow government of “czars”, the G-20 economic cabal, and the United Nations. The G-20 and the UN may not directly dictate our national policies, but our increasing dependence on the opinions of dictators, monarchies, and theocracies is placing us in thrall to the failed social systems of lesser powers.

My bottom line; my answer to the question: we are somewhere in the transition from apathy to dependence. The best example of this is the current health care debate, wherein we’re going to decide whether to turn over another 20% of this nation’s economy to government control. The failed “stimulus” spending and subsequent governmental takeover of the automotive and banking industries is another good example. As a people, we've lost our collective faith—in capitalism, God, and the inherent power of liberty to overcome all evils perpetrated by mankind—and we’ve lost our will to stand up and make the changes needed to halt and reverse our downhill slide into bondage to some dictatorial form of government based on the acquisition and retention of absolute power combined with some bizarre perversion of mob rule.

You don’t have to agree with this; unlike our arrogant, narcissistic leaders, I welcome dissent and differences of opinion. I only wish there was more of it. One has only to look at any given pork-laden congressional budget bill, or the wasteful, fraudulent dissemination of the taxpayers’ “stimulus” money, to realize that we, the people, have indeed learned to vote ourselves money from the public treasury. If anyone honestly believes the tired liberal line that “elimination of waste and fraud in Medicare is going to pay for the new [socialized] health care,” I have only one question, channeling pundits and town hall citizens: “Why hasn’t it been eliminated already?”

God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Think about it...

Keeping up with the news (or trying to!)

Wow!

The news is skating past so fast, every time I have what I imagine to be a bright idea for a blog post, it’s overridden by current events.

Let’s see…

In the past week or so, The Red Herring has essentially eliminated our missile shield in Eastern Europe, betraying our NATO allies and weakening America’s overall posture in the world. This is exactly the message to send to Iran’s Ah’m-a-madman when intelligence reports indicate that Iran is closer than ever to producing nuclear weapons.

Going back to his highly successful Manchurian Candidate mode, the president also showed up on four liberal news networks and the Latino UniVision entertainment network to tout his vastly unpopular health care program. Chris Wallace at FOX news was snubbed, because he is an objective journalist who asks tough questions that might demand answers, and Obama has none. Unlike the Clintons, Obama is not poll-driven; he doesn’t care what the public thinks. In his narcissistic haze, he is relying on his cult of personality to enable him to pull off any radical hijinks he cares to indulge in. Hence his appearance on David Letterman’s program the day following his “news show” blitzkrieg.

Watching his pathetic appearance before the United Nations, I got the impression a large number of the ambassadors from the America-hating nations were playing Solitaire on their laptops and waiting for him to finish so they could report back to their masters that America is continuing its downward spiral into fatal weakness.

Also, Congress seems to have de-funded ACORN, the election-stealing newcomers to the “culture of corruption.” Damn! There goes my plan to import several dozen pre-pubescent Mexican whores and set up a brothel in this area for all the illegal aliens working in the construction trades, carpet industry, and chicken plants here. Maybe I can still work something out with the Service Employees International Union [SEIU]; after all, prostitutes do perform a valuable service, don’t they?

At least next year’s census is safe from “creative tweaking” now that ACORN won’t be involved in determining who counts as a legitimate citizen of this country.

(By the way, whatever happened to Madame Botox’s pre-election promise to “drain the swamp” and eliminate that “culture of corruption?” Why has Nancy Pelosi not instructed Charles Rangel to step down from the House Ways and Means Committee, where he apparently found lots of ways and means to not pay taxes on all the swag he’s accumulated in his—too many—years in Congress?)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some of the president’s myrmidons held a telephonic conference call with 21 members of the National Endowment for the Arts. Sixteen of these “artists” have received taxpayer endowments of more than $2,000,000, and it’s time for the quid pro quo. It was strongly “suggested” to these paragons of creativity that they apply their dubious talents to producing propaganda for the administration’s policies in their respective mediums.

(The NEA has to be one of the most egregious federal agencies ever created. Here’s a hint: if you’re an artist, musician, or otherwise engaged in creating something that’s allegedly pleasing, if your work doesn’t sell in a free market to people who might actually desire to be stimulated by it, don’t quit your day job just yet. Beethoven had a patron; the Pope subsidized Michelangelo to do a bit of interior redecorating in the Sistine chapel. In both cases, the work of those artists was highly desired by the purchasers of the end products. If you can’t place your work in a gallery, or get a recording contract, or hawk your talents on the sidewalk for a few bucks, then don’t go sniveling to the government to underwrite your creative endeavors. I don’t want to see crucifixes submerged in urine, images of the Virgin Mary splattered with elephant dung, or gay men with bullwhips protruding from their nether regions. Stuff like that doesn’t inspire me to think, and if it’s reflective of an element of modern society, that’s not an element I’d care to exalt. An NEA endowment is your tax dollars at work, most likely funding something you’d just as soon not see. If you’re into scat-chasing, golden showers, or gay bondage, there is something for everyone on the Internet. Just don’t call it “art” and pick my pocket to pay for someone else’s cheap thrills.)

You have to admit, though, using tax dollars to propagandize the taxpayers into paying for a government program that few people want is a stroke of genius right out of the Third Reich playbook. Will we now be confronted with posters at government offices and the local supermarket that are eerily reminiscent of 1940-Germany’s Aryan supermen and Soviet Russia’s heroic workers?

I’m all over the place, so let’s consider for a moment President Obama’s latest unelected “czar”, Cass Sunstein. Here you have a man who has suggested that “hunting be outlawed, except for sport [sic]”, and posits that animals have the “right” to retain attorneys and sue…someone. (Who? Their owners? What if they’re not domesticated animals? If they’re wild animals, and subject to being hunted, do they get to sue the hunters? And what’s with the “…except for sport” business about outlawing hunting? “Sport” suggests wanton killing, while most serious hunters go by the maxim of “you killed it, you eat it.” Wouldn’t it sound wiser to advocate outlawing hunting “except to obtain food”?) In his fiefdom of “Regulatory Czar”, Mr. Sunstein is now in a position to wreak unimaginable harm on many aspects of our lives as we now know them. He is answerable to no one but the president. If his views on administration policy differed too much from his master’s, I doubt he would have received his sinecure.

(And yes, I realize that the “outlawing hunting” rubbish is just another back-door tactic to implement the seizure of all firearms not currently held by the military, the civil authorities, or the outlaws.)

I know I’m leaving stuff out here. That’s all I can think of for the moment, thanks to a total derailment of my thought process by the local EMC, who managed to lose power for the third time in 36 hours and destroy a more coherent draft of this post.

On the home front, the electricity is sporadic, telephone/Internet service has been disrupted by the weather, and it looks like the lower half of Georgia is underwater. Personally, I have been afflicted with chronic nosebleeds of unknown origin—no violent sneezing fits or nose-blowing, my blood pressure is consistently perfect, and I don’t go “gold mining”—and a severe, persistent headache caused by the ENT specialist probing my sinuses with a needle-like video thing.

There has also been some severe nausea today, but I know the cause of that. When I saw a tape early this morning of New Jersey schoolchildren being compelled to sing a song of praise to “Barack Hussein Obama…equal work for equal pay…mmm, mmm!” I became physically ill. Watching Hillary Clinton pimp kids’ welfare to advance her policies as First Lady was bad enough; now we’re into outright indoctrination. I refer you back to the concept of AmeriCorps, which is still looming as The Next Big Thing. We, as reasonable adults, can make our decisions on any given issue based upon empiricism and rational determination. When you raise a generation of children on a liberal mindset with no alternative—thanks to “political correctness”—you are going to have a power base with a specific outcome.

If you’re a liberal fascist with no aim but the accumulation of power, and no vision beyond the day after tomorrow, this is dandy. For the rest of us…well, pardon me. I have to go puke.

Something to think about

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have 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 dependence; from dependency back to bondage.”

This quote has been attributed to a number of different historians and authors, among them Alexander Tyler—or Tytler, if you please—Benjamin Disraeli, Arnold Toynbee, Lord Thomas Macaulay, Jack the Ripper, and others.

Regardless of the source, I consider the idea to be correct and profound.

I don’t do this blog as a sop to my vanity, although ego is an inherent aspect of anyone’s blog. Readership here passed 10,165 this past week, and I thank you all for considering my humble point of view as one among many.

I don’t “do” Facebook or Twitter; those are invitations for cyberstalking. I throw things out like pasta, and see what sticks to the walls. (My kitchen is a mess!)

This one time, I would really like to hear from readers, be you Constant Readers or drive-by visitors.

Going by the outline of the sequence in the first paragraph above, where do you believe we are in the progression of the life of democracy in America?

Think of it as an informal poll, and please sound off. All comments get published, and I will be meticulous about monitoring for new ones this time. If you’re shy, post as “Anonymous.” I don’t care about names or sycophancy; I want to get a feel for where others think we might be in the progression from bondage to England back into subservience to some greater sinister power.

My next time up at bat, I’ll say where I think we’re at. For now, however, I would like to hear from you.