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Democrats Live out Democracy's Nightmare

by Conservativity Staff,
Originally Posted: 2/11/2005 1:54:02 PM
Last Updated: 2/11/2005 1:55:46 PM

"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."

The above has been attributed to DeTocqueville, Tytler and others; it is probable that we’ll never know who said the above pair of paragraphs.  Ronald Reagan liberally quoted this in his speeches of the 1960’s, prior to his service as Governor of California, arguing for a more conservative and responsible attitude both toward and from the people, and against the massive handouts of Johnson’s Great Society.

"[T]he fault listed above is at least partially applicable to Republics like ours, because it would be possible to create a situation where ’...the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury...’ "

Recently, I have been tempted to argue that our beloved president Bush, while brave and steadfast against the forces of terror, had aided and abetted the downfall of the Republic along the line of the above quote.  I know, I know.  We are not a Democracy, and we have to keep this in mind during the analysis of the country’s path.  However, the fault listed above is at least partially applicable to Republics like ours, because it would be possible to create a situation where "...the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury..."  Thank God that this country has interrupted the cycle of loose fiscal policy, followed by dictatorship.

This country was actually quite good about not using the Treasury until the Democrats came to power after the Great Depression, and Roosevelt whipped open the treasury doors and handed out money galore.  Frankly, Franklin had little choice based on his campaign promises and the corruption of an unregulated securities market that brought about the Depression.  The courts kept hjim from going over the deep end, overturning the National Recovery Act and others.  In fact, a furious Roosevelt actually planned to stack the Supreme Court with up to six new liberal justices, raising the court’s size to 15, but Congress held him in check.

"[T]he Democrats came into power in the Congress post WWII, promising the exact treasury handouts that our quote warns will lead to the nation’s downfall."

As the country recovered, World War II started, and the end result was a massive victory followed by massive economic growth.  However, the Democrats came into power in the Congress post WWII, promising the exact treasury handouts that our quote warns will lead to the nation’s downfall.  In fact, the Democrats went from a fairly responsible political party, into one subsumed by the defunct Socialists, and well on its way to the kind of dictatorship that always accompanies left-wing socialism (see, e.g., communism, Naziism, etc.).  Eisenhower’s presidency put the brakes on this; Kennedy was more conservative than other Democrats of his generation, and he did not espouse massive governmental spending.

Then came Johnson, by far the most liberal president in history.  His Great Society, anchored by Medicare and the welfare state programs, fought a "war on poverty" by raiding the pocketbooks of every working person in the country.  The people developed such a sense of dependency on these programs that the members of Congress ran on the notion of "bringing home the bacon," further traversing the slippery slope of dependency and Treasury bribery.  In fact, the "bacon" did not only take the form of direct payments to people, it also constituted pet projects where the government would spend in districts.  This included keeping open unnecessary army bases, construction projects and the like.

Things got worse, even while greats like Reagan fought the increased expenditures.  In fact, it took the Contract with America to reverse the trend.  The Democratic party had (and still has), as its primary philosophy, pandering to their financial interests with the Treasury, working to enslave the people to their handouts.  The handout / dependency plans came to a head with Hillary Clinton’s abortive National Health Care plan, which was more draconian than the socialized medicine of Europe, and would have criminalized a person’s use of one’s own doctor outside the system.

In 1994, however, the people showed their wisdom and enfranchised themselves and placed the GOP in control of the Congress.  It seemed that the working people got tired of funding the Democrats’ fiscal enslavement strategy, and saw the folly of such programs as the National Endowment for the Arts, where their hard-earned money was spent on photos of crucifixes in jars of urine.

"While the people wised up and interrupted the cycle of treasury bribery and dependence with such things as welfare reform, the Democrats seethed in rage at their new inability to bribe the people."

While the people wised up and interrupted the cycle of treasury bribery and dependence with such things as welfare reform, the Democrats seethed in rage at their new inability to bribe the people.  In 2000, the people wanted their money back, and George W. Bush was elected.  In the midterm, for the first time in a decade, the GOP bolstered its control of Congress, and in 2004 bolstered it again.  The Democrats campaigned hard on the notion of handing the people money from the Treasury, speaking about education money, extended unemployment benefits and a sour economy needing help.  The problem was that the economy was (and is) booming.  The people had tasted the freedom of a tax cut and self-sufficiency, and for the first time in two generations, mandated a president with a true mind to cutting waste from government while reforming the granddaddy of entitlements, Social Security.

The Democrats are now fighting with their last breath to keep the retired on their money leash.  However, they battle to no avail.  The people are solidly behind our President.  This week, our President introduced a tough new budget, eliminating the "bacon" of a whole pile of programs that had no business existing in the first place, merging other redundant programs and eliminating overspending from others.  Real budget cuts.  And the people are for them!

Why has this country interrupted, and perhaps reversed, the slide into the dictatorship that comes from the loose fiscal policies of opening the Treasury to essentially pay people for their votes?  God, whose renewed presence in American life, has brought many to the realization that personal responsibility does his greater honor than a handout.  Osama Bin Laden’s attack, which brought this country out of its complacency in more than just defense but in every part of life.  The excesses of those that spent government funds in immoral or even amoral ways, which enraged the people and changed their attitudes, and eventually changed the Congress.  The GOP, which with its optimistic view of the American citizen, strengthened their control of government and won a mandate for real change.

The Democrats are about to elect Howard Dean as their party leader, and let him take the party way to the left of its present out-of-mainstream position.  The offers will be dangled, but Democrats are still stunned and in disbelief that the people "did not vote their financial self-interest" in 2004.  Expect more of the same disbelief, as Democrats continue to attempt to live out Democracy’s nightmare.