Inner Banks Philosophy

Is Democracy a good thing? It has its detractors.

Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee 1747-1813 was a Scottish born British lawyer and writer. He wrote:

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 world’s 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.

This is the reason that Benjamin Franklin responded to a question upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it." Why is it that the election of Barack Obama fills me with the dread that Franklin knew we could not keep it. Our days of bondage are fast approaching.