The Birth and Death of Democracy

The United States is now arguing over who has “too much” and who has “too little”.  While no one can predict the future, the following has been circulating over the internetIand bears some thought.  I have edited out the parts that "Snopes" has declared to be untrue.  The rest is for your imagination to consider.

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 over 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.  (Not verified) 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 United States has always been successful as a free economy. Being supported by the government promotes dependency which leads  (according to this history) to downfall.  Let us not abandon the poor or the  sick  but we need to create jobs to empower our country.  And we  need to foster knowledge to fight apathy.