My old friend Charlie forwarded me spam that had popped up in my mailbox several times. As a pretty good guy and an honorable conservative, it seemed beneath him and I was going to tell him so, but then I started googling and lo and behold... I'm sure you've seen it, too. Well, here is his letter and my reply follows:
Subject: Sage Advice
OUR POOR CHILDREN............
About the time our original 13 states adopted their
new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish
history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had
this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic
some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always
temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a
permanent form of government. A democracy will
continue to exist up until the time that voters
discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts
from the public treasury. From that moment on, the
majority always votes for the candidates who promise
the most benefits from the public treasury,
with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always
followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations
from the beginning of history, has been about 200
years. During those 200 years, these nations
always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4 . From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage;
Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of
Law, St. Paul,Minnesota, points out some interesting
facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:
· Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million;
Bush: 143 million;
· Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush:
2,427,000
· States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29
· Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won
by: Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1
Charlie,
Reading your last letter, I was just thrilled!! I am
so happy you have become a Democrat! Amazing, but the
universe is a funny place, I s'pose and I could find
no other explanation for your letter than as a "coming
out as a Democrat" notice to your friends.
Welcome. We're the "reality-based community" as
opposed to the "faith-based" world of wishful thinking
most Republicans live in. Being a Democrat is a great
feeling, isn't it? Almost like having a veil lifted
from your eyes. Sorta like those Afghan women must
have felt when we liberated them from the Taliban and
made it so they don't have to wear a burkha anymore.
Too bad that scoundrel Bush abandoned them to the
Taliban before the Taliban was finished off and so as
the Taliban comes back, they are forced back under the
burkha. With a little effort and research, Charlie,
you never have to go back to your blinkered
fantasyland, unlike those poor Afghan unfortunates
Bush abandoned.
It's great to have you here, but since you're new, a
few pointers are in order. Take a minute to Google
things you send along, even if they agree with our
side. We take it as a point of pride to have our
facts straight. For example, there was no "Alexander
Tyler, professor at the University of Edinburgh". He
didn't exist. The sayings attributed to him in your
letter have not been attributed to anyone so far.
This link
http://www.geocities.com/...
has the best info I have found. Upshot is that there
was a Tytler, not Tyler, but this saying never
appeared in any of his writings. Its all over the
internet, but not in a consistent form so it is most
likely a bit of folk wisdom with Tyler/Tytler's name
attached to give it more authority. Whoever did it
probably figured Tytler was obscure enough that no one
would ever go through the trouble of checking. Then
along came the internet and we can google stuff with
ease. Lucky for us, because as I said, we liberals
are "reality-based" not "faith-based" like the
Republicans.
Back to the quote: if it is an immutable law, we're
toast. But as you now know, we liberal Democrats do
not see the destruction of our civilization coming out
of every little issue. We have MUCH more faith in the
American people than conservative chicken littles who
shriek "The sky is falling" at every bump in the road.
Now for the substance of the quote, which I think is
pretty good. I think this was written before the days
of long-dated bonds, because with long dated bonds,
and a bit of financial trickery, we can vote ourselves
largesse FROM THE FUTURE!! Pity the children indeed.
To take just one example: the $70 BILLION a year
prescription drug benefit. No offsetting spending
cuts, we're just borrowing the money and passing the
bills on to our children. With interest. Along with
billions for wars which, whether we needed them or
not, everybody agrees are not being fought well. Some
projections for the cost of these wars come to over a
TRILLION DOLLARS!! Can you imagine? And that does
not include social costs. Chicken-hawk Republicans
are so fond of declaring how important a two parent
household is, but have no problem creating
single-parent households by sending folks off to fight
leaving their children at home. Financial stresses,
mental illnesses, divorce, juvenile delinquency, etc.
etc. Imagine how many unwanted pregnancies will come
from unsupervised minors in those single-parented
households, to name just one issue of many.
I was a bit puzzled by your mention of "Interesting
facts Bush v. Gore". It seemed a bit late (didn't
Gore run in 2000?) and not in keeping with your
conversion. But then I realized you were highlighting
one of the most ridiculous Republican talking points
of all. Good job!! A few observations, beyond the
ones you already made:
1. Professor Olson at Hamline U. does exist, (unlike
Tyler) but has denied that he was the source of that writing. Again, someone just used his name for the
authority it confers. That's a "no-no" in the
reality/fact based world we liberals live in.
2.Funny thing in there too if you take a minute to
analyze the numbers: counties that went for Bush have
more people yet Bush did not get a majority, so Bush
counties must be much farther along in the "apathy"
(i.e. not voting) phase than people in Gore counties.
3. Square miles of land? Good for pointing that out.
I mean what the hell has that got to do with the
price of tea in China, right? Why does that mean
anything at all? We are a nation of PEOPLE, not
square miles!! And the whole thing about taxpayers v.
govt. dependents, you undoubtedly know that a huge
proportion of the land in Red states is Federally
owned, i.e. owned by all of us, including national
parks, monuments, forests, wildlife and wilderness
areas, etc. or Federally administered like Indian
reservations, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of
Prisons, Bureau of Reclamation (i.e. dams and related
property), Dept. of Defense property, Interstate
highways, among literally hundreds of other government
agencies with land. It is certainly owned by
taxpaying citizens, but ALL of the taxpaying citizens
of this country, not just those living in those
particular states.
4. States won. I love this one!! Jeez, Republicans
can't even add!! 19+29=48!! Don't know where they
went to school, but our grade school taught us that there are 50 states in the union!! Once I read that one, I figured
you were just sending it along to show what
unthinking, mindless automatons Republicans are; you
know, how they don't even read and think about what
they send along. It would be funny if it wasn't so
sad, don't you think?
5. As for the murder rate, check out this site for
the real deal:
http://www.snopes.com/...
6. As for the whole Bushland v. Goreland, check out
this map.
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/...
As you can see, with a very few exceptions, Red/Bush
states take more in federal dollars than they pay in
taxes, while Gore states pay more in taxes than they
pay out in Federal dollars. That is mostly due to the
aforementioned Federally administered/owned lands and
predominance of industrial scale farming I mentioned
before. And Republican lies to the contrary, the
biggest welfare queens per capita don't live in inner
cities, they are western cattle ranchers and
midwestern grain farmers. Well, other than the great
American middle class. The mortgage interest
deduction and tax breaks to encourage businesses to
provide employee health insurance are the largest
untaxed piles of money in the entire US economy.
Eliminate those two alone and much of the deficit
disappears. But then welfare queens like the folks
who got this email are screwed too, so I'm not arguing
to scrap them you understand, just sayin' you have to
know what you are talking about now you're a
Democrat!!
Now, why would be be so concerned with facts when the
other side, neo-conservative Republicans, obviously
has no concern whatsoever for facts or reality? Well,
sometimes things we write get passed along to people
we don't even know and sometimes those folks don't
have the high-priced educations you and I got, an
education that above all stressed critical thinking,
you know, the ability to question what we hear and
read and skills to check the veracity of those things.
We want to make sure what we say is correct so we
don't get called out for being juvenile knuckleheads
who just pass along any old thing without thinking
because we like the way it sounds. Doing that makes
us look, well, unworthy of the ultimate sacrifice made
by so many who came before us "to secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity". Despite
what Republicans say, our form of government is a
precious gift, won with blood and toil and much
treasure, through difficulties we can't even imagine.
Sadly, it can too easily be corrupted by
short-sighted, greedy, small minded people. Let's not
let that happen!!
Anyway, welcome to our community and I'll let Dan
Seals know your check is on the way!!
yr. old friend,
Sourmash