Mis-Quoted

I heard a quote on the radio yesterday that I thought fit what is currently happening in America. It was attributed to Alexander Frasier Tytler, a Scottish writer (1714-1778).

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.

I went online to find the exact quote and ran into this site that shows the quote cannot be attributed to any one person with certainty.The reason I posted the site is that even if the quote's origin is unknown, I still feel the words do seem to ring true as to what is happening today.The issue the host (not Rush) was saying is that we have a segment of the voting populace that pay no taxes yet receive the bulk of government assistance. This segment has been growing with every election and every new program. people sit and complain when Congress votes themselves a raise, yet they (the people) have been doing it since the new deal. We are heading down this road unless we can stop it. Or is it too late? ( my personal opinion is we are nearing the middle of the Apathy stage and may be sprinting to the Dependence stage soon)