"Great Quote of the Day"

I was reading through my latest edition of "Torch" magazine (the news magazine from Cedarville University). The Spring/Summer 2009 edition has some great articles on what went wrong with our economy and why (I greatly appreciate their analysis from a free-market viewpoint). On page 8 there's a quote on the difference between democracy and a republic. Think about this:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse [i.e. wealth or large sums of money] 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 is 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 apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependence back into bondage."

This is attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747-1813). Wherever this quote came from, it illustrates many truthful points. One of which is that history teaches us valuable truth. Our Founding Fathers had an iron grasp of classical history. They knew it, learned from it, and passed on to us a republic--if we can keep it.