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"Unfortunately, the history of democracy is that leadership philosophy is eroded as the competition between elites becomes more intense. That's what happened with Athenian democracy; that's what happened in the Roman Republic. So you look at our system today; you see our elites doing it, and you know were in big trouble. It's in my lifetime that this has happened, that elites have begun to put winning ahead everything else, ahead of truth and country.
"When Watergate was prosecuted, there were Republicans in Congress that were after Nixon. They thought what he was doing was unconscionable, and today that's not the case. Today, Democrats stick with Democrats, and Republicans stick with Republicans. They dont care what their party leaders have done. Just in my lifetime, I've seen this civic culture go from something thats respectful of democracy to something that is manipulative of it. The problem is if you let this go uncorrected, the Democrats are going to do something worse later, and then the Republicans. It's just an arms race almost, and it will just tend to degenerate."
-- Lance deHaven-Smith, in an interview in Research in Review Magazine, Florida State University, Fall/Winter 2005
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The last cycle was broken by the wake-up calls of Socialism and then the Nazis.
It would seem that there are always better examples we can look for and grim warning signs that we should watch out for. My hope is that we can learn from them without having to have genocidal maniacs knocking on our own doorstep. Unlikely for the next two years, but not impossible.
As for predicting doom- someday, I'm going to make a fortune off of some doom-sayer who's willing to bet lots of $$$ that they believe they're going to lose anyway when the world/the US/whatever ends. You'd think I'd have learnt my lesson after all money got siezed by the Govt. after the Y2K riots, but I'm just doomed to keep reliving my mistakes.
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I believe we've been incredibly lucky--if the bad guys had been competent and willing to move a little more slowly, they might have been able to wreck the country. As it is, I think there's some hope.
(no subject)