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American Democracy Balancing Precariously, Utica Observer-Dispatch, Aug 16, 2020
“May you live in interesting times” an old Chinese well wish or curse. We are living at a point in the life
of our democracy philosophers like Alexis Charles de Tocqueville and others predicted the end of
democracies life expectancy ranging about 250 years. America’s democracy is balancing on the point of
a pin. Corruption among the royal leadership is a caustic poison that drips down to the people.
In 1787 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, said this: “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 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.”
Professor Tyler continued with these eight steps of a democracy:
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 to bondage
We seem to be on pace to make Professor Tyler’s predictions come true. Our ancestors took great risks,
sacrificing sweat, blood and life, to free themselves from the bondage of monarchs, despots and
dictators. They fought hard for the treasures of freedom. It appears recent generations are
surrendering those freedoms in the most cowardly of capitulations, rolling over like dogs to be leashed
in bondage. Settling fat, happy and lazy, back again to emaciated and down trodden.
Regards,
Gerald J. Furnkranz
Main Street
Millport, NY 14864

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