From Bondage to Bondage

Note: Originally published on my Myspace.com blog on November 16, 2007.

Quoting Alexander Tyler (an 18th Century Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh) reflecting on the demise of the Athenian Republic 2,000 years earlier:

“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 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 due to 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. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage”

From my perspective, it feels as though we’re moving from the apathy phase into the dependence phase here in the United States. Consider Social Security. Consider Medicare. Consider Katrina. Consider protection from drugs (War on Drugs). Consider protection from outside threats (War on Terror). Protection from one another. Consider the maintenance of our national (and therefore personal) sovereignty. Consider welfare. Consider food. Consider energy. Consider water. Consider infrastructure.

Consider our sense of entitlement. I’ve distinguished a personal sense of entitlement. I’m systematically – with an initial cost of personal comfort – repealing areas of my world-view in which I believe a) the government/public owe me something and b) I am dependent upon government.

Of the things I’ve become dependent upon… how would I feed myself, get clean water, defend myself, defend others, defend liberty? If the federal government rug were pulled out from under my feet right now, what would I do?

The short answer is it could prove to be an unsustainable shock to my system. Do I feel like I can or want to do anything about it? Is that apathy? Is that dependency? And if I am unprepared, unwilling or afraid to move forward without the comforts I’ve been dependent upon, am I not likely to be, do, say anything the provider of said comforts demands of me?

Ask yourself, what do you feel entitled to? It’s okay – there’s nothing wrong with a sense of entitlement. You’re certainly able to have and maintain a sense of entitlement. The important thing to get – for one who chooses entitlement in a democracy – is the definable consequence…

And more importantly, if history shows us this systematic self-destructive tendency within democratic governments AND we’re self-aware, would you agree we can do something about this?

What do you think? How do you feel about this? When it comes to the cycle of bondage and freedom… liberty and tyranny… who are you?

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Restore the republic…