Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government

David Remer (PoliWatch.Org) found the following quote which seems so appropriate for the U.S. struggling with a weakened economy, high taxes and voter apathy.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith 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 dependency; from dependency back again to bondage. --Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian

The bondage of which Sir Tytler speaks is evident today in America through the growing of the American Aristocracy and the bondage of working class citizens to taxes for the undeterminable future as a result of an approaching and growing 7 trillion dollar federal government debt.