The Death of Democracy

By Kevin Gibson
November 13, 2008

Well, it’s official: Democracy as we know it is dead. Barack Hussein Obama is going to kill it when he takes office and turn America into a teetering socialist country at best, or embark on a dictatorship at worst. Mark it down. It WILL happen.

How do I know this? Because all the party-line Republicans I know won’t shut up about it, that’s how.

I’m really disappointed to learn about this, to be honest. For one, I thought Obama seemed like a decent sort. Also, I kind of like democracy, even though it isn’t perfect. But, sadly, there is compelling evidence that my right-wing friends are right. What evidence, you ask?

First of all, Obama plans to raise taxes for the rich; in fact, he plans to tax them into starvation, from what I understand. That’s socialism. OK, actually, he plans to allow President Bush’s tax break for the wealthy to expire in 2010, reverting taxes to what they were during Clinton’s administration.

Socialism. Socialism!!! Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! Name the movie! NAME THE MOVIE!! Sorry, where was I? Oh yes …

I also received the following quote in an e-mail regarding Obama’s sinister plan, definitive proof that says it all for me: “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 that 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.”   -- Alexander Tyler writing in 1787 about the fall of the Athenian Republic

The quote is followed by commentary stating that Obama MUST represent the final step on this unfortunate path of demise. In short, we’re screwed; we non-Republicans have been exposed. Exposed, I say! I want only the generous gifts our government owes me, and I don’t want to have to work for them either, dammit. And now I’ve been found out!

So where did we free-loaders give ourselves away? Was it the blood spewing forth from our hearts? The expensive after-shave? Hell, I’m not even really a democrat; I’m non-partisan, and STILL I’ve been discovered for the democracy-undermining cretin that I am deep down inside!

Actually, all hyperbole aside, this quote is dubious in its origins and has been around as a tool for propaganda longer than you might think. In actuality, it was first spread not long after the 2000 election (and we all know who won that one).

But according to Snopes.com, the Internet’s pre-eminent heresy detector, the quote from “Alexander Tyler” (which apparently wrongly references Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler) is quite likely fictitious, or at best officially unattributed. Why? Well, Tytler never wrote a book about the fall of the Athenian Republic, for starters.

In fact, a thorough search of his book Universal History, From the Creation of the World Through the 18^th Century (which is available online if you want to look it up), apparently turns up no quote even remotely like it, even through using numerous search terms lifted directly from the quote. (Here’s the link to the Snopes article - http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp - if you want to read it yourself. And I’m not the only one who is annoyed by this propaganda -- here’s another article that details this particular quote and its uncertain origins:http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north484.htmll; and here’s another: http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html.)

The bottom line is, the quote has indeed existed for some time and has even been used by politicians (Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond among them), but best anyone can tell for sure, it’s a phantom statement. Hell, it could have been written by your Great Uncle Leon, and we all know how he drank.

The quote that apparently Tytler is indeed responsible for is this: “It is not, perhaps, unreasonable to conclude, that a pure and perfect democracy is a thing not attainable by man, constituted as he is of contending elements of vice and virtue, and ever mainly influenced by the predominant principle of self-interest. It may, indeed, be confidently asserted, that there never was that government called a republic, which was not ultimately ruled by a single will, and, therefore, (however bold may seem the paradox), virtually and substantially a monarchy.” (Source: Bartleby.com)

My point is this: I’m always amused at the lengths to which people will go to push their own agendas; I mean, it’s one thing to get excited and forward an e-mail that you haven’t properly researched. It happens. (OK, it doesn’t happen to me, but apparently it happens to some people.)

And someone apparently, at some point in time, went out of his or her way to either make this shit up or at least spin it so that they could use it as a means to maliciously and dishonestly coerce others by playing with their emotions. What is ironic (and frustrating) is that the e-mail constitutes hypocrisy. It is a blatant attempt at self-serving manipulation, and that’s essentially the accusation in the context of the e-mail. (Yeah, do the math. Take your time.)

Sorry, but a simple scare tactic like this is only meant to disarm and take advantage of the not-so-bright among us. Fortunately, I don’t count myself among those numbers, which is why I took the time to research it before reacting too strongly or, god forbid, sharing it with others as absolute truth.

And I’m glad I did. Because in doing this research I also learned that story about the kidney thieves, in which the victim wakes up in a bathtub full of ice missing both of his kidneys, isn’t true either. Seriously, who knew?

E-mail me. But don't try to bullshit me; it only pisses me off.