This reminds me of something Professor Alexander Tyler wrote in 1787. Tyler was a Scottish lawyer and writer. He came up with what I refer to as The Seven Steps of Democracy. Each step follows a sequence that begins with bondage and ultimately ends right back where it started.
WHERE ARE WE AMERICA?
1. From Bondage to spiritual faith: The English colonists of the United States felt they were being oppressed, and began to inspire a spiritual and political awakening.
2. From spiritual faith to great courage: The religiously and politically oppressed colonists finally decided to rebel against England and take their independence.
3. From courage to liberty: The courage to start a rebellion led to a revolution against England, and ultimately a victory.
4. From liberty to abundance: After victory, we grew as a nation. We experienced an industrial revolution, and soon our country sat in abundance.
5. From abundance to complacency: As a country, we became complacent in our wealth and comfort.
6. From complacency to apathy: Following that, we began to lose our ability to care about what happened in the country, particularly in politics. We began to accept larger government in our lives, without much thought as to how it would later effect us.
7. From apathy to dependence: As the government grew, we began to rely on the government to take care of us and provide for us. We began to rely on social security, welfare, food-stamps, and other programs.
8. From dependence back into bondage: Out of this growing dependency, we will fall farther and farther down the rabbit hole, and find ourselves in Greece. Financial collapse, riots, social decline, and ultimately bondage. Then we are back where we started.
November 7, 2012 by Frank Camp