The following quote attributed to Scottish history professor Alexander Tyler in 1787, seems to portray an accurate reflection of what has occurred during our 200+ years of existence as a democracy.

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 world's 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

These words were written two years before George Washington became our first President.  There is so much truth in these words it makes me shudder, especially since we are clearly in stage 7.  An honest appraisal of our country's downward spiral is necessary to begin the process of redemption.  We have continually voted ourselves increased benefits, dependent upon the printing presses of the Federal Reserve to sustain our country's ponzi scheme.  We have pawned our future and the bill will eventually come due.

My assessment of the chronological sequence our democracy has progressed through, follows.

From bondage to spiritual faith (1760 to 1769)

• King George III becomes King of England
• Currency Act, Sugar Act, Stamp Act, Quartering Act, Townshend Act passed by Parliament
• Sons of Liberty formed by John Adams, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, among others.

From spiritual faith to great courage (1770 to 1783)

• Boston massacre
• Samuel Adams organizes the Committees of Correspondence
• Parliament passes the Tea Act
• Boston Tea Party
• The First Continental Congress
• Battle of Bunker Hill
• Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense
• Revolutionary War rages for six years
• British surrender at Yorktown
• Treaty of Paris ends Revolutionary War

From courage to liberty (1784 to 1865)

• Constitutional Convention
• Constitution ratified by 13 states
• George Washington elected President
• Bill of Rights passed
• Fugitive Slave Act passed
• Louisiana Purchase
• Robert Fulton invents steamboat
• War of 1812
• Monroe Doctrine
• President Andrew Jackson battles bankers which leads to the Panic of 1837
• U.S. Mexican War
• California gold rush
• Compromise of 1850
• Dred Scott Decision
• Abraham Lincoln elected President
• Confederate states secede from the Union
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Civil War rages for four years
• Union is restored
• 13th Amendment abolishes slavery

From liberty to abundance (1866 to 1969)

• Civil Rights Act of 1866
• First Trans-Continental Railroad
• Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
• Industrial Revolution
• General Electric founded
• Spanish American War
• U.S. Steel founded
• Airplane invented
• Automobile invented
• Federal Reserve created
• World War I
• Great Depression
• New Deal programs implemented by FDR
• Golden Gate Bridge completed
• World War II
• Holocaust
• Atomic bomb used to end war with Japan
• Marshall Plan rebuilds Europe & Japan
• US emerges from the war as the only great economic power
• Cold War
• Korean War
• Interstate highway system built
• Civil Rights Movement
• John F. Kennedy assassinated
• Vietnam War
• Great Society programs implemented
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Martin Luther King assassinated
• Neil Armstrong walks on the moon

From abundance to complacency (1970 to 1989)

• Roe vs Wade
• President Nixon resigns in disgrace
• Oil embargo
• Ronald Reagan elected President
• Military buildup and tax cuts
• Fall of the Soviet Union

From complacency to apathy (1990 to 2000)

• Gulf War
• Bill Clinton elected President
• Stock market boom
• Gridlock between Congress & President leads to budget surpluses
• President Clinton acquitted in impeachment trial

From apathy to dependence (2001 to 2007)

• George W. Bush elected President
• Nasdaq stock bubble bursts
• 9/11 attack
• Alan Greenspan lowers rates to 1%
• Invasion of Afghanistan
• Department of Homeland security created
• Invasion of Iraq
• Hurricane Katrina
• Home prices double
• Financial derivatives grow to over $100 trillion

From dependence back into bondage (2008 to ????)

• Housing prices collapse
• Financial firms collapse
• Government and Federal Reserve intervene to prop up the worldwide financial system
• Government bailouts of financial firms and auto manufacturers
• Federal Reserve & U.S. Treasury commit over $8 trillion of taxpayer funds
• Barrack Obama elected President
• Immediate borrowing & stimulus packages exceeding $1 trillion are discussed
• Federal Reserve lowers rates to below 1%