This Page

has been moved to new address

Cycle

Sorry for inconvenience...

Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration Service
Bloviating Zeppelin: Cycle

Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Cycle


Alexander Fraser Tytler once wrote, in 1770:


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 the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years.


These nations have progressed in this sequence:


  • From bondage to spiritual faith;
  • From 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.

The United States is a democracy, an empire.

It is within the gunsights of any number of countries that would rejoice upon our demise.

  • Because we are free, we are a target.
  • Because we are loud and obvious about our freedoms, we are a target.
  • Because we accept secularism as well as various religions, we are a target.
  • Because we are prosperous, we are a target.
  • Because we possess logic, common sense, rationality, proportion, we are a target.
  • Because we have a system that works, we are a target.
  • Because we have saved numerous countries and not demanded their lands we are a target.
  • Because people mistake sense for weakness, we are a target.
  • Because we are successful we are a target.
  • Because our society readily makes Americans of most of its inhabitants, we are a target.
  • Because some societies are jealous of our success, we are a target.
  • Because we are frequently Larger Than Life we are a target.

All things considered, we are a Miraculous Presence.

But I would ask: where are we now, on this continuum? And can we pull back from the end of this continuum, and avoid Rome?

A portion of the world seeks to destroy us, that much is clear, no matter where we are on the scale.

Destroy you.

Destroy me.



BZ

8 Comments:

Blogger Ranando said...

I thought after Bush was elected the second time that we would never again see an open election, I hope I'm wrong.

I don't think any country will distroy us, my feeling is we will distroy ourselves, from with-in.

A country divided cannot stand and this country is more divided than ever. I think our enemies are just waiting for us to distroy ourselves.

Everytime an American speaks ill of another American we help our enemies. Republican bashing Democrats, Democrats bashing Republicans it'doesn't matter, our enemies are watching and waiting.

God knows I do it, we all do it but should we do it?

We are our worst enemy, IMO.

Wed Oct 03, 08:54:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Gayle said...

BZ, we won't be able to avoid Rome if the Democrats regain the White House, and as long as liberals attack me for my opinions I'll defend myself, as we all should do. If our enemies in foreign lands believe we are weak because of our freedoms and different opinions, that could be a fatal mistake. If we Americans let this country go down the tube to socialism, that will be our fatal mistake. Ranando's right... we may indeed be our own worst enemies, but we must still fight socialism at all costs.

Wed Oct 03, 09:22:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Aren't we in fact a Republic? :P

Ranando is correct, we will and are destroying ourselves from within.

The sad thing is and we talkked about it this morning on My Point Radio is that some of us, that would be me, would never be able to "come together" with some of these people.

Yesterday I posted a funny picture with a soldier and an Iraqi. It was funny. Everyone I showed it to laughed uproariously.

But one commenter said this:
"I hope the *assh*le on the left catches a roadside bomb in the face. Nice way to show you want to liberate the people of Iraq. Keep it up, hopefully you'll come back in a pine box. What a loser."

He's talking about a US soldier.

No, we'll never come together when that attitude exists. Never.

Wed Oct 03, 10:47:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Bloviating Zeppelin said...

Ranando: I am in complete concurrence with our being destroyed from within -- with some exceptions. I'm formulating some thoughts and I'm just -- up in the air on some issues I'll attempt to coalesce in the future with a post.

Gayle & Jenn: see the last sentence above. At one point, maybe a year ago, I was fairly certain I knew where we were going. Now I'm not sure. . .

BZ

Wed Oct 03, 12:05:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Ranando said...

WOW!

I just hit the comment mother-load.

Thanks BZ.

Wed Oct 03, 01:57:00 PM PDT  
Blogger A Jacksonian said...

"Our present condition, is, Legislation without law;
wisdom without a plan;
a constitution without a name;
and, what is strangely astonishing,
perfect Independance contending for dependance.

The instance is without a precedent;
the case never existed before;
and who can tell what may be the event?

The property of no man is secure in the present unbraced system of things.

The mind of the multitude is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before them, they pursue such as fancy or opinion starts.

Nothing is criminal;
there is no such thing as treason;
wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases." - Thomas Paine, Common Sense


We are exactly where we were, it appears, before that time when things needed to be declared... blood spilled against tyranny, yet many wanting to appease it even so...
how bad things must get before we see that lack of being fixed towards liberty is tyranny in and of itself?

Indeed our Constitution is nameless... see at the top a lack of name?

We name the punishment for treason found, and well it is said two must say that this is so... yet now we cannot even say what treason *is*, and unnamed many practice it to our mutual bane.

Again and again we are told to look up to government for answers and yet, it supplies few, hidebound, static, uncaring save for those that govern.Never are we told to look to ourselves and to say, 'this is ours to have, ours to lose' for in that doing we realize we have been undone and betrayed by those we entrusted with our welfare.

We say there are those that represent us, and yet most have never voted for them. Wherefore do they come, these ones that stay in office as Nobles and Royalty?

Indeed legislation there is to great marks and depths, rules made and yet never enforced until only the rules are law in abundance and never kept, thus meaningless to all.

Once independent we now depend upon the largesse graced to us by those that rule, forgetting that such largesse is ours to start with, given freely by consent.

We have those calling for 'fair taxation' and yet we are unrepresented as most have not given the grace of ballot to consent to these rulers to tax us. Make taxation easy and forget the cost of it to you and me by paying, and in that forgetting the Tree of Liberty withers, its branches grow barren, the Republic parched beneath dead, rustling leaves.

Winds blow now anew, predators skulk in that shadow land around us and no longer do we look to the stars above to give guidance, only to those that make plans and legislations and yet they have no law to give and such wisdom is without aim.

The Great Tree dies, even as patriots die in far off land to help others learn about this Tree.

We see them learn and branches near them slowly bud with promise of new found liberty to make freedom whole. Yet by us events grow weary, slow and leaves fall around us as the heat of tyranny is felt in the land once more.

Predators come to us again, yet we dare not call them that for it would have meaning and direction to that, so in our wisdom we call them 'human' yet they are beasts red of tooth and claw.

We rejoice in one gravely wounded beast afar, and yet ignore that it regrows even as we watch and other creatures worse still grow stronger without name to them.

Others have heard that clarion call, see that guiding star and beacon, and desperately seek to find way to give the Tree nourishment, yet their fetters remain and heads bowed as beasts keep them under foot.

Now those who spoke such things are dead and their nourishment unrenewed to the Tree. Liberty dies here, even as we teach it elsewhere, and we forget the meaning of liberty as it was spoken out so long ago.

Yet the wellspring of Liberty can refresh if man and man and man come together and make it theirs to keep. Too few keep to Liberty as the means of tending called democracy has too few to govern, yet too many to rule.

We become more numerous yet those in governing fewer and fewer to us, until we know them not. Democracy is those we KNOW sent forth, not those we THINK we know. Without the cacophany of voices, the whispering of conspiracy is heard in the lack of multitude.

The only conspiracy is ours, as we think democracy can be easy to do, yet it is not easy and is the harshest, hardest, system to keep running as many another land has shown us when they took the pathway of ease and comfort. That House we built is too small, and has too few in it, yet to speak the say that too few is not democracy is to be demonized by those that wish ease and efficiency.

Tyranny is easy.
Despotism is efficient.
Totalitarianism is simplicity itself.

Democracy?

America wanted it easy.
America wanted it efficient.
America wanted it simple.

Liberty is hard.
Slavery is simple.

Best we remember that lest the beasts fit the fetters to us in their depravity which many will call saviour. And others will see as dictator.

Wherefore art thou, the Sons and Daughters of Liberty? Acting as you please in perfect dependence so that things can be simple for you?

Treason.

Wed Oct 03, 05:06:00 PM PDT  
Blogger bigwhitehat said...

I thought Alexis de Tocqueville said that.

Wed Oct 03, 09:40:00 PM PDT  
Blogger A Jacksonian said...

Forgot the link... *sigh*

Thomas Paine, Common Sense.

Thu Oct 04, 08:38:00 AM PDT  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home