What do you think?
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What are your thoughts on our republic today? Many years ago, on the subject of the fall of the Athenian republic, Alexander Tytler said:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
"Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."
I believe we are at the apathetic stage heading straight toward dependence. I also believe we can reverse our direction and once again become a great nation if we can vote out of office our current president and replace him with a strong fiscal conservative who has common sense and knows how to use it.
Jim Mewborne
Gainesville