Don't know if this is true, but it's interesting

[Kelly J]

About the time our original 13 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 prior:


"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 worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these 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 Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election


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


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


States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29



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

tax-paying citizens of this great country.

Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off 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 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.


If the Senate grants Amnesty and citizenship to 20 million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye USA in less than 5 years.

 

[Marko Kloos]

Rehash...already treated here:

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2058130#post2058130

I'll just copy and paste my reply from that thread...if you don't care whether it's been posted before, I don't see why I should.

First of all, "Alexander Tyler" does not exist. There was a Scottish historian named Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler, but the list you quoted is not to be found anywhere in his books, which are available as full-text documents online.

Also, the average age of the "world's greatest civilizations" is most certainly not 200 years, although the U.S. is conveniently just a bit over 200 years old.

Rome stood for 1,000 years, 500 years of Republic and 500 years of Empire. If you count the Byzantine Empire as an extension of Rome, that goes up to 2,000 years. Ancient Egypt lasted so long that they separate its history into three separate eras, each of which lasted over a thousand years. There are plenty more great civilizations that easily surpass the 200-year mark by factors of five, ten, or more.

In short, the claim in the quote is false.

At any rate, the quote is an urban legend.