Here is an e-mail I received from Michelle today. Thought it was quite interesting!

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution,in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at TheUniversity of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The AthenianRepublic" some 2,000 years prior."A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as apermanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist upuntil the time that voters discover that they can vote themselvesgenerous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, themajority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefitsfrom the public treasury, with the result that every democracy willfinally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followedby a dictatorship.""The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from thebeginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years,these nations always progressed through the following sequence:From Bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage;From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance tocomplacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; Fromdependence back into bondage."Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul,Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the most recentPresidential election:Population of counties won by:Gore=127 millionBush=143 millionSquare miles of land won by:Gore=580,000Bush=2,2427,000States Won ByGore=19Bush=29Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:Gore=13.2Bush=2.1Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush wonwas mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this greatcountry. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living ingovernment-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency and"apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the"governmental dependency" phase.