Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Downfall of Democracy

“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:

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 into bondage.”

Rarely have democracies survived beyond 200 years. Why do democracies fail? Two of the major reasons are: 1) democracies generally progress through an initial period from bondage to spiritual faith escalating to the point where the citizens become totally dependent on the government to where they eventually revert back to bondage, and 2) once the democracy shows signs of prosperity, citizens vote themselves generous bounties from the public treasury. Does this not sound familiar? Is democracy only a temporary and marred refuge until social engineers miraculously discover the ultimate solution?


Democracy, or the form used in the United States and most advanced countries, representative democracy or a republic, seems to be the best method social engineers have concocted to date to afford people an opportunity to have a voice in their government. The world continues to be overrun with dictatorships, socialist governments, a few communist governments, and Islamic theocracies. We can argue the merits of democracy versus the alternatives, but at this point in history, most authorities on the subject recognize that democracy has proven to be the best solution ever tried on the planet. The United States is not the first successful democracy in the world. Over 2,500 years ago, the people of Athens, Greece created a true democratic form of government that lasted for nearly 200 years but was eventually destroyed not by the people but by a military overthrow by a powerful neighbor. On the negative side, they kept slaves in much the same manner as in the days of our fledgling democracy. The most intriguing aspect of the Athenian democracy was that the people voted directly on every issue that affected their lives. Politicians, or so-called representatives of the people, did not exist.


Although the origin of the “Downfall of Democracies” is often attributed to Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor who lived in the 1700s, the origin of the material below may be attributed to Alexander Tytler, or even Arnold Toynbee, or Lord Thomas Macaulay. Whoever can lay claim to the study of democracies that had existed until that time had remarkable conclusions. He had this to say about democracy in general, “A democracy is always temporary in nature: it simple cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote 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.”


Does this sound familiar? With almost one-third of all Americans feeding at the public trough, its only a matter of time before everyone receives some form of benefit and henceforth, the entire country will crash and burn with most likely a military dictatorship filling the void.

Does this not sound familiar! We’ve gone from being overtaxed slaves of King George of England, to a new republic that accepted any religious faith, to a wonderful new country with a brilliant constitution, to being the richest country in the world, to today over 50% of the voters are apathetic to politics, to where a major portion of Americans are literally demanding government benefits, to eventually losing all of our freedoms (just read some sections of the Patriot Act). Many people now believe that we are now at the “apathy to dependence” phase of the professor’s theory with over 30% of the nation’s population already having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.


Let us not forget that during the 2004 presidential election, the candidates collectively amassed a war chest of over $2 billion. We know that the individuals, carpetbaggers, organizations and corporations don’t make these donations out of the goodness in their hearts. That’s when we, the citizens, get to take it on the chin in the form of government contracts and special legislation/bills that are decreed to reward these people for their excessive contributions.

To ensure our survival, that’s the future for America – eliminate the politicians. Of course I’m advocating a radical concept but it’s time to think outside the box to save the country. With emerging technologies there is realistically no reason why within 10 to 20 years we cannot eliminate the obnoxious power of Congress and place the onus of responsibility back on the people where it belongs, by voting directly on every statewide or nationwide issue. Just watch what happens to taxes and the budget if the people are directly responsible for expenditures. Of course, the professional politicians will fight that prospect with lies and every dirty trick in the book but the American people can prevail.


Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Shack




I just finished this book within 24 hours. I could NOT put it down! The story grabs at your heartstrings and takes you on a life-changing ride. I recommend this book to anyone who has suffered during their lifetime....which is all of us at some point!

The whole story revolves around the kidnapping of the main character's daughter, and how it impacts the people involved. We follow Mack, the main character, through every emotion imaginable and find ourselves standing tall along side him when he dares ask God why do we suffer.....

What I love about the story the most is how personable God is....

Please pick it up, you won't regret it!!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

24 THINGS ABOUT TO BECOME EXTINCT IN AMERICA

Yellow Pages

This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages
industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodle Factors like an acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.


Classified Ads

The Internet has made so many things obsolete that
newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a
long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could
signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if
newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like
Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.

Movie Rental Stores

While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster
keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000
left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down
considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of
Circuit City . Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.


Dial-up Internet Access

Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in
2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.


Phone Landlines

According to a survey from the National Center for Health
Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and,
of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on
their cells.

Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs

Maryland 's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in
Chesapeake Bay . Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and so-called "climate change" get the blame.


VCRs

For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a
best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.


Ash Trees

In the late 1990s, a pretty, irridescent green species of
beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North
America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the midwest, and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana . More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.

Ham Radio

Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide)
wireless communications with each other and are able to support their
communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses in the USA has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.


The Swimming Hole

Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming
a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like
Robert Every in High Falls, N.Y., are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle . The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.


Answering Machines

The increasing disappearance of answering machines is
directly tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to
USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.


Cameras That Use Film

It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid
disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.


Incandescent Bulbs

Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes,
100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green
movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S.light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.


Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys

BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans
who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone
bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for
all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.


The Milkman

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950,
over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying breed.


Hand-Written Letters

In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183
billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?


Wild Horses

It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million
horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National
Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada . The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.


Personal Checks

According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of
consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years,
while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment
remains the last stronghold of paper-based payments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).


Drive-in Theaters

During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in
theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still
operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn't much of a
movement toward reviving the closed ones.


Mumps & Measles

Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and
mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States. In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.


Honey Bees

Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so
dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.


News Magazines and TV News

While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over
the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about thediminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 millionviewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.


Analog TV

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of
homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or
satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals --
who are using rabbit ears or a large outdoor antenna to get their local
stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you'll need
to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.


The Family Farm

Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been
declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the
nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003
farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S.farms are small family farms.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Cave House for sale in Missouri (Photos)





Live in your own CAVE HOUSE!

Mr. Sleeper has posted his beautiful home on Ebay, and also was interviewed on Fox News Channel concerning the sell of his own. His 'balloon note' for his mortgage is about to expire. Due to the economy, the banks will not extend the credit line, although financially he is able to make the payments.

Take a look at his auction on Ebay or his own personal website filled with photos of this wonderful home in Missouri.

$300,000

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Story of Soldier & Iraqi girl (Photo)




It's a tough, but heart-warming story...

John Gebhardt's wife, Mindy, said that this little girl's entire family was executed. The insurgents intended to execute the little girl also, and shot her in the head...but they failed to kill her.

She was cared for in John's hospital and is healing up, but continues to cry and moan.

The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair.

The girl is coming along with her healing. He is a real Star of the war, and represents what the Western world is trying to do.

This, my friends, is worth sharing with the WORLD! Go for it!!

You'll never see things like this in the news. The public needs to see pictures like this and needs to realize that we're making a difference. Even if it is just one little girl at a time.

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust our sails...

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

We are ALL Socialists Now.....

...Bye, Bye, Ms. American Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry & good ol' boys drinking wiskey and wine, singing, 'this will be the day that I die...this will be the day that I die' COME ON & SING ALONG EVERYBODY!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

FIREPROOF the Movie











My husband and I watched FireProof tonight, and we enjoyed it greatly. This movie showcases a typical married couple, long after the honeymoon stage is over. Fireproof gives insight on how each party is feeling about themselves, each other, and the destruction that only silence can bring. I recommend this movie to any couple going through rough times, as well as newlyweds in hopes to gain the knowledge of what this movie will bring.



LOVE DARE is an excellent tool for any marriage.
Check out the first few days of Love Dare:
http://www.bhpublishinggroup.com/lovedare/book.html#moreinfo