Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

I recently received an email which I wish to share with everyone. With the presidential election less than two months away, now is an appropriate time for our citizens to give some careful thought to their selection. The entire course of America's future may depend on it.

Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Armenian 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 voters discover they can vote themselves generous funds from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate who promises the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations have progressed in the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependency back to bondage.

Born: 1776; Died: 2012

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minn., points out some interesting facts concerning the last presidential election.

Number of states won by Obama, 19; McCain, 29

Square miles of land won by Obama: 580,000; McCain, 2,427,000

Population of counties won by Obama: 127 million; McCain, 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Obama: 13.2; McCain, 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low-income tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the complacency and apathy phase of the definition of democracy with 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Good-bye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Good-bye to the USA in fewer than five years? Scary? Yes! I'm 80-plus and scared enough to hope I won't live to experience what's coming.

I can't vouch for the validity of this information, but based on current and world news, it makes sense to me.

Jess Black

Fort Scott