How Long Do We Have?


About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new
constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at
the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the
Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:


"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 they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public
treasury."


"From that moment on, the majority always vote 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, those nations always progressed through
the following sequence:


1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"


Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St.
Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000
Presidential election:


Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29


Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000


Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million


Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore: 13.2
Bush: 2.1


Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory
Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this
great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living
in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government
welfare..."


Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
"complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of
democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already
having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.


If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million
criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say
goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.



Apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. Are we going to lose it?

It is a scary scenario and we can see it happening.

I once had a friend tell me that I was entirely too upbeat about my depression.

I guess that, despite all, I am an incurable optimist. Whenever I hear "All is lost," I think of that song from "Hee-Haw!"

"Gloom, despair and agony on me,
Deep dark depression; excessive misery,
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all,
Gloom, despair and agony on me!"

Actually, quite the contrary. States which Bush carried have far MORE Federal spending coming in than taxes collected, whereas those carried by Gore (such as Minnesota) pay more to the Treasury than they receive, very much more, in the aggregate. Statistics are slippery things, not to be confused with facts.

It's a good job we're a REPUBLIC then

Constitutional Republic - which appears to by an oxymoron.........

..as many, especially the left, do not believe in either the Constitution nor the Republic.......

However, I am optimistic as there are large numbers that do believe in both the Constitution and the Republic ..... but they are quiet, waiting, and the left fears them waking up before they are totally hand-cuffed, dis-armed, and registered.......................and lots of them are very well trained by the military.................Wolverines!....... ...........

.

Just throwing this out there*: Is the federal money in bush areas for farmers? I would think the government, giving money to farmers, would be an attempt to sustain life elsewhere. What farmers sell makes tax revenue and of course keeps people alive (so they can spend more money elsewhere). Whereas people on governmental dependency**, are mouching and not producing.

* - Standard Disclaimer for someone who has no knowledge of the actual topic or the facts involved.

** - I have no numbers on actual people on governmental dependency and mouching status. I am stereotyping because of the perception of people on governmental dependency actually mouching.

*** - Yes, drinking and posting.

Remember the Wolverines were in the middle of the country, that said, France will get pissed at us when the UN building is condemned and it moves to Paris..........the frogs nuke the east coast.
Kim Jong Il is secretly lusting for Awec Borewin and after being rejected again, Nukes the west coast................NIRVANA

Farm subsidies have been around much longer then the Bush guys. Actually farm subsidies have been reduced over the current Bush's term - but not positive.

Consider - would you want the farmers to go under?

Mostly-

A Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch.

If the farm subsidies went away - and they should - we'd pay about the same (or maybe a bit less) for foodstuffs as we currently do. The commodity prices would go up but, in theory, taxes *should* go down since we'd no longer have to pay the subsidies.

People cry loudly about "losing the family farm" and I say BFD. We buy cars from big corporations; why not our beef and pork? Well, these already come from huge corporations. I have a brother-in-law who's employed as a nutritionist by one of the country's largest hog feeding companies. They butcher 1.2 million hogs a year. What do we, as consumers, get from this? Less expensive meat (except for Andrew and Joel, that is). Corporate farms are more efficient than small operations. They're, unfortunately, not touchy-feely as are the family farms.

What do you think E85 would sell for if not for the entire farm/ethanol industry, end-to-end, getting handouts from Uncle? I can assure you it wouldn't be 40 cents less than pure gasoline.

jb

A few off-topic nuggets:

a) Andrew eats plenty o' pork, and he got his favorite pork rib recipe from a certain Jewboy who sells body armor. Joel does not look askance at the odd BLT, either, I don't think.

b) Even if we avoided pork (G-d forbid!), all you goyim eating it would help keep down the price of moo-meat. Macroeconomics 101!

And back, sort of, on topic:

You're right: the "family farm" is an anachronism that we can't afford to keep purely from nostalgia. If more businesses had to sink or swim on their own (like family farming, interstate trucking, and metro transit, to name a few), our economic system would gravitate toward the most efficient (read "less expensive") solutions. That would mean more factory farms, more rail transport, fewer buses and lower taxes for everyone.

Andrew, Do you really know anything about interstate trucking or even transportation in general? This sounds to me like you are falling for the generalizations found in the media. But, a discussion on that subject wouldn't really be appropriate under the heading "Minnesota Political Gun Issues". I mostly respect your opinions on gun and 2nd ammendment issues, better if you stick with them.

Better yet if you decide what you want to talk about, and I'll decide what I want to talk about, and that you don't presume to judge what I know.

In brief, for those of you wondering, while semi-tractor-trailer trucks cause an enormous amount of wear and tear on the public roadways, compared to passenger cars, trucking companies pay, relatively, a much smaller use tax to do so. In effect, passenger car drivers vastly subsidize interstate trucking. Take away this hidden subsidy and moving the same product by rail becomes far more cost effective than trucking.

I don't particularly want my gas tax to subsidize punk-ass gang-bangers' rides from Brooklyn Center to the Mall of America, nor do I want my tax dollars subsidizing ethanol, road-destroying, freeloading trucks, or the nostalgia we seem to feel for the "family farm."