I've gotten things like this in my inbox before. It's only worth as much as you take it for, but it is interesting. How long does the US really have before our democracy goes down the crapper. If you look at the falls of great societies, you can see a lot of the things that contributed to that fall in our society now. Here is the e-mail I received:

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE?This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. The sad thing about it, you can see it coming. I have always heard about this democracy countdown. It is interesting to see it in print. God help us, not that we deserve it.

How Long Do We Have?About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

"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 they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

"From that moment on, the majority 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.

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years""During those 200 years, those 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"

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:

Number of States won by: Gore: 19 Bush: 29
Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000 Bush: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million Bush: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore: 13.2 Bush: 2.1

Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare..."

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.Thanks for reading.

Okay, back to me.
Yeah, I believe the cycle of democracy is generally true. And I think we're in the stage the professor says we are. It makes sense to me. Now, what was said about illegals gaining citizenship, and the country going to pot in five years? Somehow I'm not that much of a pessimist. I think we have a little longer than that. And what would happen to our country if democracy failed? Well, something would come along to replace it. Maybe a different form of democracy. Maybe the Republic would be strengthened so voters couldn't simply vote themselves whatever they wanted. Who knows. I can't really worry about all that. I just try to live my life and be happy. It's all we can do.