Thursday, November 6, 2008

Our "Democracy"

About the time our original thirteen 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 earlier:
* '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 vote 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, those 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:
Number of States won by:
Gore: 19
Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by:
Gore: 580,000
Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by:
Gore: 127 million
Bush: 143 million
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 taxpaying citizens of this great
country.
Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in
government-owned tenements and living off various forms of 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 forty percent of the nation's population already
having reached the 'governmental dependency' phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the
USA in fewer than five years.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Our history of Halloween



Our first year, my roommates went as the spice girls, and his roommates went as the guys from "The Office".

Our second year, we went together as Thing 1 and Thing 2
And this year, James and I went as Sarah and Todd Palin, and James is holding our little baby!
I couldn't figure out the Utah floof in how to make my hair poofy, so the hairdo wasn't as good as it could have been, but other than that everyone thought I was supposed to be Tina Fey. I was kind of frustrated that everyone recognized me as Tina Fey dressing up as Sarah Palin.