Author notes preservation of liberty
Published 9:50 am Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Several years ago my wife stumbled across a writing whose author she did not note when she copied it for me, so I cannot give credit except to her. This piece is worthy of reflection and remembrance in the present day, and it is as follows:
“In 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, noticed a continuing pattern in the advance and decline of the world’s democracies.
“He stated then that a democracy would continue to exist until such time that the voters discover that they can literally vote themselves gifts from the public treasury. From the moment that revelation is made the majority proceeds to vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury. The final result is that every democracy finally collapses due to loose fiscal policy. That collapse is always followed by a dictatorship.
“Tyler charted the ages of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history . . . an average existence of about 200 years. Every single time these nations 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, and finally from dependence back into bondage.”
Where now is our nation …..our beloved United States of America? Granted that we have liberty, albeit of lesser quantity and quality than was contemplated by our forebears in 1776. Granted that our liberty has brought us abundance, but can’t the evolution stop there? Recognizing the truth of Professor Tyler’s analysis, must his predicted consequences occur? Must we (indeed have we) become complacent, apathetic and dependent? No, No, No, we must not.
But to avoid those ills and to preserve our precious liberty, we, as has been said, must be vigilant. Indeed, we must be well informed of our history and of the events of the present day and of the consequences of elections and of legislative proposals, if not for our own good and for the sake of our descendants, but in recognition and appreciation of the commitments and the sacrifices and the dreams and the boldness of our preceding kindred of those in governmental authority and on the fields of military battle. We should; we must! It’s our duty, our obligation!
The preservation of liberty is worthwhile; it just makes GOOD SENSE!
Robert Maxwell
Atmore