Let me save you the trouble: Tocqueville simply didn't write those words or a lot of other words attributed to him. http://www.bessettepitney.net/2011/07/m ... ville.html http://www.bessettepitney.net/2011/12/f ... again.htmlterrydowning wrote:Very insightful
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
―]http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/ ... ocqueville[/URL]
I'm gonna download the book "Democracy In America" to my kindle.
"Democracy in America" was required reading in one of my college courses and like many "classic" required texts I had to read, I recall it was boring as hell. In fact, I recall falling asleep in the library reading room midday trying to get through it. Had there been such timely, acerbic (and frankly funny) quotations as these in there I not only would have been wide awake but probably would have been thrown out of the library as a result of uncontrollable laughter.
Now, if you want to read a political classic that will keep you awake and in stitches, pick up "The Prince" by Machiavelli. Then you will know where the adjective "Machiavellian" came from.
