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Re: Democracies end when they are too democratic.

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Tue May 3 20:21:49 2016, in response to Re: Democracies end when they are too democratic., posted by Express Rider on Tue May 3 19:57:18 2016.

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The most salient point is that the Founding Fathers were very careful to construct our form of government as a Republic, rather than repeat the mistakes of the past. They clearly understood Plato's point, and even if we were to actually end up in a Trumpian Dystopia, he would be subject to all of the checks and balances designed into our "democracy."

And if Plato wasn't enough guidance, there's also the words (often incorrectly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville) of Alexander Fraser Tytler, also known as Lord Woodhouselee, a Scottish advocate, judge, writer and historian. Tytler believed that governments and democracy go through stages that last 200 years:

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.

The Union will stand because of its clever design even though the likelihood of that Trumpian Dystopia is quite the long shot. :)

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