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.
Any comments on the truth or validity of this cycle? If this is the truth of history and the future of our country then I for one will not fall into the cycle of dependency. And I will stand and fight against all odds before I allow myself and my family to come into bondage. If the cycle holds true I pray that it will be my daughters or their children who will then lead our country and its great people into "spiritual faith" once again.
28 comments:
That is a very sobering post, Jason! Are there any examples from history of nations that successfully broke that cycle? Hope you and the ladies are all doing well! B'Shalom, Daniel
Hey, Yehudi, good to see you again!
Israel has been the only nation that has broken the cycle, and that was ONLY with G*D's help and design.
G*D bless and MARANATHA!
tmw
It looks to be the truth.
Some truth, but you should elaborate on the dependence issue.
The right will immediately jump on social welfare issues when in fact the dependence is a matter of the colonies finally being unwilling to keep the central colonial power in the manner to which its upper class becomes accustomed.
Remember papa frank,
You cannot build a healthy economy on hotel sheet folding and paper-hat gigs. On moving money around on spreadsheets. People can’t buy homes, send kids to college or retire in an America where the only employment left is working for WalMart and selling each other haircuts, manicures and chicken dinners.
There is nothing at all wrong with those jobs: they’re honest, and the labor of those who work in the service sector is probably more honorable than that of any banker or broker. But pretending the endgame for an economy based on enriching a few billionaires and pauperizing everyone else into a permanent wasteland of nothing but low wage, WalMart work is anything other than a blueprint for the coming Corporate Feudal State is delusional.
This is an interesting theory and a little sobering but I don't think I agree with it.
This may be a simplistic argument but I think the two things we have now that have been missing throughout history are communication and information.
In the past, the people generally taken advantage of were the uneducated, uninformed peaseants. They often didn't know anything about the day to day politics of their government and often didn't know of a change of power until after the fact.
In today's society we have significant access to information. Some of this information is misleading and filtered, as in the media. There is a lot of it though that is not, talk radio, more independant cable news, primarily Fox but also CNN to some extent, and the internet.
I have said in the past that Reagan, while he may have sped up the fall of the former Soviet Union, he also may have gotten too much credit for the fall itself. I believe it was the inability of the Soviets to stop radio and television signals into the country. The people were able to see a different way.
We are also seeing this in China. While no one will argue it is a progressive country, the people have made gains.
We have to have more faith in Americans. While the low hanging fruit of Obama's socialism seems tempting, I still believe most Americans prefer to work for what they get. They would prefer to climb up and pick something higher just for the right to say that it is theirs.
For America's sake, I hope you're wrong.
Ducky still denies Adam Smith's distinction between the servants who work in a millionaire's mansion and the machinists who work in his factory. One of those jobs produces wealth, and the other strips it away.
Good post, Jason. I can see where we've followed this cycle as a nation, except for the complacency. It seems out of order. We're complacent NOW and we're also dependent (China, OPEC, etc.) and I fear we'll be in bondage again someday.
But of course, I hope I'm wrong.
Well I assume the servant is paid wages and spends them. There does have to be demand, although I doubt Smith's servant is putting it all on the Amex.
That toys for treasury bills globalist model is getting a little long in the tooth.
this nation will never repent - we'll more than likely be joining those civilizations which took this route in the past - hopefully, the outcome will be different.
hosha na Moshiach
p.s. - we must listen to the same radio stations - i heard a pastor preaching on this very issue last week.
Well, we're clearly well into dependance and probably just about back into bondage.
*sigh*
Yes ducky, there still has to be demand. But one kind of demand makes you poorer and another kind makes you richer. But please, you keep choosing to augment and increase expenditures on the "foolish" kinds. That way, we're sure to retake the House in 2010.
You need to be more "discriminating" ducky. You, of all people, should understand that not ALL spending is good.
What I want to know is, if the Free Market is so all-fired miraculous, how did such a pack of meatheads rise to the top of the auto industry?)
Yeah Farmer and here's how government can help us out of the ditch. Spending will be required.
Enact health care reform…to take the burden of wildly-overpriced employer-based health-care off the backs of American business, in order to make them more competitive.
Enact education reform…because the days of a million high-school drop outs making a Middle Class living pounding anvils and running lathes is over; because the new good jobs (and the prosperity of the nation) depends entirely on a skilled and adaptable labor force.
Pour real money into a green energy portfolio…first, because tethering your manufacturing and distribution systems to a variable like oil which is controlled by hostile foreign powers is suicidal. Second, because somebody’s gonna have to actually man-u-fac-ture the solar cells, fuels cells, wind turbines and so forth.
It's kind of sad. All that money we pissed away in Iraq could have put us well on our way to realizing a national rail network much like the national highway system.
We can do it but we'd have to get past the folks yelling "socialist" who have such a poor reading of American history (and most everyone elses) that they don't realize government is essential to these tasks which generate no immediate direct profit. It's the kind of bold can-do project that would get us back on track.
It's not socialism but state capitalism but I'll leave that lesson for later.
Ducky -- First of all, thank you for your honorable and thoughtful discourse here that is void of name-calling and put downs. A couple of observations on your observations though:
Free market/auto industry meatheads -- I would point to Lido Anthony "Lee" Iacocca as a pure genius and not a meathead. That being only one example. Also, the reason that we stayed ahead of the auto industry worldwide for so many years was because of the free market and the limit on regulation. Our fall in standing in the industry is much more from rigid regulation on the industry and foolish non-regulation on the power, and the abuse it led to, of unions.
Health care reform -- the health care reform called for by our new administration will be payed for and the burden put squarely upon the shoulders of small and medium sized business in the form of a much higher tax burden. This will indeed kill business and tilt the scales even more in favor of only big business and government entities.
Education reform -- this is where the left always fails to see that their view of value in relationship to education gives them the title of elitists. For every studied and schooled lawyer or doctor or college professor or computer technician or the like we still will need 100 common laborers. We will always need toll takers, plumbers, street pavers, grocery baggers, trash truck drivers, and the like. These are not lesser jobs or jobs without honor. They are jobs held by those suited to do such work. Many of whom are far more intelligent than the schooled and learned. An ounce of common sense will aid a person, and the society in which they live, far more than a ton of schooling.
Green energy portfolio -- as long as this is controlled by a government entity or big business then the greenest of green energy portfolio is still tied to a variable -- the variable of greed and control which is the cocaine of government. Green energy is great and should be pursued aggressively but only within the boundaries of the free market.
Money in Iraq -- The democrats pissed away as much money as was spent in Iraq in five years time in only about ten days when they passed the idiotic 750 billion dollar bailout that they are now using for whatever pet project they like instead of what it was intended for. Those in Congress doing this, Democrat and Republican alike, should be thrown out. And incidentally, a national rail network does absolutely nothing to help common people in small town America. It is only for those in major cities. What common people need is the government out of their pocket and away from their personal rights.
I'm with Cube....but not so optimistic.
papa, I rarely get nasty unless provoked. That includes direct insults and indirect vulgar remarks about "socialists".
I prefer discussion but I am a very good counter puncher.
Right now 20% of our GDP goes to health care. There is incredible waste in that figure including the huge cut the insurance companies take to do nothing except make sure those who might make claims are moved onto public health coverage or nothing.
Single payer reduces that 20% figure so whatever form it takes be it taxes or direct employer payments or benefits to state workers (since you are a school bus mechanic I'll assume you are covered by the state and LOVE those tax benefits).
The knee jerk tax argument from the right is specious and just that a reflex action.
Yeah, Iacocca was a pretty bright guy but he wasn't the one who built a business plan on the Hummer 2 platform.
Yes Frank, the democrats were guilty in Iraq as well. I don't look for much change with a Dem.
There are some benefits:
1. The advocate state capitalism which is an improvement over the laissez-faire hell that bankrupted us since Ronnie Raygun took office.
2. They can negotiate and understand the severe limits of bombing up countries and they don't expect they can get away with simple bromides about "our freedoms" without their base asking a few questions.
3. They understand that we live in a pluralist country and generally don't try to enforce a minority morality on everyone.
... and it's true what you say about education Frank but as part of my reform I would want a curriculum that doesn't produce docile consumers.
I want everyone actively reading, creating and becoming prepared to make decisions in a more worker controlled economy.
I want a populace that understands how advertising subverts their lives.
I don't think a quality education shouldn't be widely available. There will be those who don't want it (especially in this culture of passive consumers of everything from knowledge to SUVs) and so be it, but I want to make knowledge sexy.
Teh unions shouldn't have drove so many jobs overseas and they've supported so many left wing propositions that it's hard to want to give them anything.
It's like I heard someone way it's like shooting your parents and then asking for sympathy because you're an orphan.
If we got away from the narcissism and the navel gazing we may be able to reclaim the country....
but somehow I doubt it.
(when I say we...I mean we as a people...neither right nor left)
I want a populace that understands how advertising subverts their lives.
elaborate ducky? do you mean in just the material...gotta have it kind of way or in the same way some people believe advertising subverts values?
I believe the elements included in this diagram are important, however, I don't see any value in the actual pattern. I see bondage and liberty as the ends and all else as a means to either of those. When dependence, apathy, complacency, and selfishness are all present it will result in bondage. But, I don't believe in any way that this is a natural cycle, that it just happens, if that were true history would be as random as the wind, but it's not, it's not random at all. It always leads to one thing, more money and more power for the international bankers. If history were random that would only happen 50% of the time. When it happens 100% of the time you need to start asking questions.
elmer, yes I do believe advertising is a critical element in the subversion of values.
It's a shot straight into the id.
Counterpoints would both be present in about 50% of citizens if it were random, but as we know it's overwhelmingly heavy on one side. And if this were natural all nations would be going through some variation of this cycle, which suggests that at any given time a sample of countries across the globe could be taken and your results would be at about 50% for those on one side of the cycle and those on the other. The only conclusion is this isn't random or natural. So what is it? Why is it happening? How has it happened in history to other countries? Why have leading world countries gone from bondage to revolution to... not freedom, but socialization and stopped? It's easy to see in history how these things happened and who was behind it, and to me its completely silly to see the same events happening in our country and think it's just some natural occurrence.
Well, it figures I'd be around for the downswing.
Ducky, I totally agree with you on the advertising. What's your solution? Please don't say government regulation...
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