The Bushies' imaginary friends - heraldblog

The Bushies' imaginary friends

A quick show of hands: how many of you have received the foilowing e-mail? It's been circulating on the internet while the chads were still hanging during the 2000 election. Now, the GOP faithful are trotting it out again, as proof of something, exactly what, I'm not sure.

Reliable reader Roger O. in Michigan has challenged me to critique it, and to publish it here. So here goes. My comments will follow throughout in italics.

At about the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinborough) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior.

According to the informed folks at Snopes.com, where critical thinking skills are not in short supply, there is no evidence that a Scottish history professor named Alexander Tyler ever taught at the University of Edinburgh. There was, however, a man named "Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler, who was a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

"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, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

OK, so we've already established that Alexander Tyler exists solely in the minds of red state-of-mind yahoos, and as an imaginary playmate on right-wing geocity websites. But is it possible that he said this anyway? One clue might be found in the reference to a book called "The Fall of The Athenian Republic", cited in the previous paragraph. Supposedly there is such a book. Here's Snopes on that:

"...there is no record of The Fall of the Athenian Republic or The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic in the Library of Congress, which has several other titles by Tytler."

Ooops. Furthermore, the literary works of Lord Woodhouselee are available on-line, and searchable. A search for the words Athenian Republic, democracy, generous gifts, public treasury and other keys subjects does not yield the quote so liberally, if I can use that awful word, attributed to Lord Woodhouselee, aka Alexander Tytler, aka Rush Liimbaugh's imaginary playmate. Let's continue, shall we?

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

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."

The paragraph tells me two things. First of all, that the GOP faithful have given up touting Bush's record as President, and have instead resorted to making stuff up and hoping no one notices. Second, that the author of this ingenious piece of virtual folderol needs to finish his GED.

How does one launch an argument with the proposition that Democracies are temporary in nature, and then offer as "proof" that the average age of all civilizations, almost all of which were non-Democracies, is 200 years? That's like saying that most dogs only live to 10 years of age, because the average age of all the mammals is only 9.8 years.

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

Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000
Bush=2,2427,000

A meaningless statistic. Do cornfields vote now?

States won by:
Gore=19
Bush=29

19+29=48 Hmmmm? Who won the other two - Lyndon LaRouche?

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2
Bush=2.1

Too stupid for words. Just go to snopes.com and search "Tytler" for a long explanation of why these numbers are bogus.

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

Olson believes the U.S. is now somewhere between the "complacency and "apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy; with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

Now hold on to your seat: There really is a Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, which no doubt comes as great comfort and relief to reliable reader Roger O. of Michigan. The bad news, O, is that Professor Olson denies ever assembling the above "facts." Which aren't facts.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake in this Election Year and that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

Apparently, for the Bushies, realization comes from spreading fabricated quotes from fictitious historical figures, and citing books that don't exist. I agree that apathy is a great danger to our freedom, but to say it's the greatest is stretching things a bit.

In fact, for people who rely on imaginary ideological soul mates for comfort, apathy is an ally. Heck, it's all they got.

4.8.04 01:09

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To date 7 Comment(s) TrackBack-URL

ponnyj (4.8.04 03:03)
Further proving that you have to be an idiot to vote for Bush (again).

(4.8.04 14:52)
Hi
interesting theory going around in this part of the world is that GWB may call a state of emergency and not hold elections. The fact that he pulled out a 4 year old "terror warning" is only seen as evidence of him doing the same.
Is this a valid theory?
harini

ponnyj (4.8.04 16:09)
They've already floated the idea of postponing the elections because of a terrorist attack or threat, so I would have to say that yes, it would be a possibility.
I really think he would have to be desperate as hell (he is) to do this and try to get away with it, because people in the mainstream media have already begun questioning the veracity of these warnings...if you follow American media you will know how big of a step that is.

(4.8.04 17:31)
The President has no authority under the constitution to postpone elections. That power is held by Congress, and there is virtually no chance that anyone but Tom Delay would vote yes.
My right wing friends are just as freaked out by the government heavy-handedness as my left wing friends.

ponnyj (4.8.04 20:22)
Right...It would definitely have to be an actual terrorist attack, and probably quite devastating at that, to even muster the support in Congress to enact such a provision. I just hope we don't have to be put in the position where we have to worry about how Congress might act in such a situation.

(5.8.04 03:49)
about 25 years ago Indira Gandhi - a former Prime Minister of India - got the President to declare emergency. It was slightly more than the suspension of elections. It was the suspension of all constitutional rights. It was dissolution of Parliament, - leaving a small team in charge
The excuse was an "external" threat. The 18 months that followed were not very nice. I was a toddler, but have heard stories about this.
That provision still exists in our statutes.
Hope that u have nothing like that

(5.8.04 14:27)
If the Bush declared a national state of emergency, and tried to suspend the constitution, it would create such an uproar among the electorate that Bush's own mother wouldn't vote for him.
There is precedent for Presidents losing their constitutional perspective in challenging times. Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeus corpus during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. But even then the US Supreme Court rebuked him and reinstated it. I know that from your side of the world, it looks like the US is losing its collective mind,
and that the American people are seriously considering re-electing a paranoid dictator. But there are several safeguards that prevent Bush from realizing his mad dream. First and foremost is, he wants to be re-elected, and the red-meat right is just as protective of civil liberties as the left. Bush is also wary of portraying the Republicans as the party of gulags and thought police, which would make it hard for another Republican to be elected President in my lifetime.