Users Online Now:
2,118
(
Who's On?
)
Visitors Today:
1,261,245
Pageviews Today:
2,097,949
Threads Today:
815
Posts Today:
14,370
08:48 PM
Directory
Adv. Search
Topics
Forum
Back to Forum
Back to Thread
REPLY TO THREAD
Subject
Enjoy the bread and circuses (and obamaphones) while it lasts
User Name
Font color:
Default
Dark Red
Red
Orange
Brown
Yellow
Green
Olive
Cyan
Blue
Dark Blue
Indigo
Violet
Black
Font:
Default
Verdana
Tahoma
Ms Sans Serif
In accordance with industry accepted best practices we ask that users limit their copy / paste of copyrighted material to the relevant portions of the article you wish to discuss and no more than 50% of the source material, provide a link back to the original article and provide your original comments / criticism in your post with the article.
[quote:Anonymous Coward 21147804:MV8yMDQzMzY1XzM0MzM1MTc3X0JDNTE5QjMy] A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy [/quote]
Original Message
The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’
‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.
Robert A. Heinlein
Pictures (click to insert)
General
Politics
Bananas
People
Potentially Offensive
Emotions
Big Round Smilies
Aliens and Space
Friendship & Love
Textual
Doom
Misc Small Smilies
Religion
Love
Random
View All Categories
|
Next Page >>