George Orwell - 1984

"The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”

Democracy

Heard about this on the radio recently, and thought will share it here. Worth chewing on, be it the condition in India, or here in the United States.

It could probably that we are getting a bit too skeptical and are under-estimating our resurgence ability. And it becomes clear when you read about Alexander Tytler that he had a cynical view of the democratic system of government, and probably that the democracy that he writes about is not as evolved as the ones now. And we all know that there simply doesn't seem to be a better form of government than a democracy at the moment.

But.

Keeping in mind all these things, these words still manages to achive parity with the current situation. Selfishness and Complacency and Apathy.

(Do click on his name to get to Wikipedia to read about him)

Alexander Tytler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinborough (1887) has been credited with the following:

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.

Great nations rise and fall. They always progress through the following sequences:

• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to selfishness;
• From selfishness to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back into bondage.