Common Sense Government posted a frightening article in 2009 about the eight stages of Democracy which was outlined by Scottish historian Alexander Tytler in 1787 who named ten. His work on the subject was published two years before George Washington became our first president. What is frightening about it is we are unquestionably floating between the 7th and 8th stages.
The author of the piece quoted from an article entitled, “An American Tragedy”on December 16, 2008, by James Quinn, a financial writer and senior director of strategic planning for a major university. Quinn 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.” [Consider our recent spending bill]
“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:
- Bondage
- Spiritual Faith
- Courage
- Liberty
- Abundance
- Selfishness
- Complacency
- Apathy
- Dependence
- Then starting over with Bondage
Quinn’s article and Eberhard’s is based on the writing of Tytler. He envisions the stages in a circle.
As famed economist Walter Williams has written, bondage is the natural order of things and our freedoms are the rare exceptions.
In a piece on gun control, Williams writes that Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not just laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society, not restraints on inanimate objects.
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The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
When these — the last lines of defense break down — the society falls apart.
Also to be considered is what happens when law enforcement breaks down as it is now. Law enforcement is also on those last lines of defense. [Consider sanctuary locales and lax enforcement policies like those affecting Nikolas Cruz of Stoneman High]
All of that is under siege by the hard-left and continues to be.
The 200-year process as outlined by Professor Tytler
Bondage to Spiritual Faith
Our nation is very young and it has continually reshaped itself as it grew. It freed itself from the chains of high taxes and fled the limits on freedom of religion and speech. It enshrined our inherent rights including those of privacy.
Spiritual Faith to Great Courage
God and Christian-Judeo values were the basis for the Constitution and all our liberties. There is a war on God now. It’s just not cool. Soon God will be banned from every public place.
Courage to Liberty
Our founding fathers knew we could not prosper with England at the head of our lives. We had to be a nation of God, country, and family. If not God, then some higher moral principle based on the inherent rights of man must stand for God.
Man fought for that and under that banner.
Liberty to Abundance
The United States has been blessed by the efforts of those who came before who fought for those principles. We have flourishing industries, businesses, and a rich economy.
Our military is the strongest on earth.
Abundance to Complacency
Complacency- self-satisfaction, especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers and deficiencies.
Around the time of the Great Depression, people felt the money could and would always be available from someplace. Most looked to the government and it grew, but not on its own ability to make money, but, rather on the premise it could steal the money of others and spread it around.
Social Security was a temporary benefit to lend a helping hand but now it has welfare attached to it. We began to help the elderly and infirm, now we give those benefits to foreigners who have earned little or nothing as Americans.
The income tax was also meant to be temporary as were sales taxes, but the government grew and it needed more money.
Complacency to Apathy
Apathy is a complete lack of interest or concern. It is indifference and the lack of emotion, commitment and belief. Indifference is based on the idea that we can’t fail and, in any case, we don’t care. How many times have people said, “Wake Up America” only to find no one did?
Resistance is too much trouble and for what? If you don’t really believe in something like God or the inherent rights of people as laid out in our Constitution, you have nothing to care about, nothing to fight for.
Why struggle with being careful when having sex when you can just kill the baby? There is no need to work on commitments and loyalty to others such as in marriage because everyone divorces. Resistance is hard and it’s so easy to sit back and rationalize, especially if you believe in nothing.
Why not give up? It’s so easy to do nothing, I’ve got mine.
Apathy to Dependence
That takes us back towards the natural order of things — bondage. Whoever promises the most freebies and the pot at the end of the rainbow, gets voted in.
We must rely on God if we believe and we must always believe in ourselves, rely on ourselves. If we don’t, our benefactors will manipulate and enslave us. That is the price to be paid for unearned handouts.
Worship of the State is enslavement to the elite at the top who feed themselves on the labor of others.
Why worry about the printing press in D.C., just keep the money flowing to satiate the greed of a lazy nation in its death throes.
We now can’t see a doctor without government, we can’t earn money without heavy taxation, we can’t do much without a law popping up to stand in our way.
Dependence to Bondage
We are heading for slavery. Some among us want Americans back on the plantations, urban plantations, where social engineers can use us and manipulate us. They are the ones who will educate and train us as well. What can go wrong?
BONDAGE
They will give us jobs, houses, food, healthcare and they will tell us what to do and what kind of job we can have and what kind of food we will eat or not.
The Masta is the State and we are all the slaves. The government will pick the winners and losers throughout society. We see the beginnings of it now.
The hard-left destroys anyone who disagrees with them — professors can’t speak freely, students can’t, people can’t even keep their jobs. Political correctness is framing conversations and destroying the First Amendment. The tech giants and government are after our privacy rights. We are even being told we can’t defend ourselves adequately.
The tech giants, in league with government, are becoming Big Brother.
Government is currently deciding who gets the jobs per quotas; they are making decisions about neighborhood compositions with disparate impact; lawsuits are even being settled by disparate impact. The State decided babies can be killed and the left wants it to be to the moment of birth. Terrorists have been freed because the government said so. Our borders are opened to replace the current population who still speak of liberty, not dependence.
We all sit back and let it happen although it is smack dab in front of us. We passed the 200-year mark in our young Republic, but we are now quickly progressing towards bondage.
You may have noticed the government never gives up power and, as it grows, it becomes more powerful, more dangerous, and more controlling.
It’s obvious and it’s only common sense.
Our Founding Fathers established a Republic, not a democracy, with all the safeguards needed to keep it. They knew in their wisdom that democracies are doomed to failure. The American Tragedy lies in the fact that we abandoned our Republic. In fact, you will be hard-pressed to find a politician calling the USA a Republic. As a result, we are devolving through the last stages of democracy.
