(Via John Mauldin’s “Outside the Box” newsletter)
“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….”
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish lawyer and writer, 1770
Feel free to look at the Amateur In Chief’s $3.8 trillion budget proposal (highlighted at the White House web site as “A New Era of Responsibility”–*gack*) through this lens.
“Democracy is little more than the system by which 51 percent of the people can pee in the cornflakes of 49 percent of the people.”
–Jonah Goldberg
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
-H. L. Mencken