Are we there yet?

This seems accurate to me, no matter who first wrote it.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. (John Adams thought that democracy will work only for moral men, and that morality comes from religion). 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, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

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 dependence back into bondage

So where are we right now? Here are some recent statistics from 2007.
53% of Americans now recieve 'significant' income from the government. 1 in 5 Americans hold a government job or a job reliant on federal spending. A similar number receive Social Security or a government pension. About 19 million others get food stamps, 2 million get subsidized housing, and 5 million get education grants. For all these categories, Mr. Shilling counted dependents as well as the direct recipients of government income.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0416/p01s04-usec.html?page=1

"All this reflects an ambivalent America. The nation prides itself on the benefits of economic freedom. "The era of big government is over," President Clinton declared as he prepared to put new limits on welfare spending in 1996.
Yet as a rich nation, America also sees the opportunity to offset financial risks faced by its citizens.
"New Deal programs persist," despite the Reagan revolution and its aftermath, says James Galbraith, an economist at the University of Texas in Austin. "They persist because they are largely successful and highly popular."
They are popular, but so is limited taxation among the people who spawned the Boston Tea Party.
"You do have the yearning for cradle-to-grave paternalism, but as Americans you also have the carry-over of the frontier spirit" of individual opportunity, says Shilling. That's the trade-off that will define the scope of government, he says."

* The above was edited and compiled by OregonActivist *