Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Fwd: Largess out of the public treasury


From: larry.r.trout

The first portion (italicized above) first appeared on December 9, 1951, as part of what appears to be an op-ed piece in The Daily Oklahoman under the byline Elmer T. Peterson.[11] The original version was as follows:

'Two centuries ago, a somewhat obscure Scotsman named Tytler made this profound observation: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing,'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fraser_Tytler

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