"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years." This quote is attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler.
In 1814, John Adams said "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
These were some smart folks, a lot smarter than I. The founding fathers knew the same things, as they built a number of clauses into the Constitution designed to prevent the failure of our fledgling democracy. The first was designed to isolate at least one legislative branch of congress from the majority. Section 3 of Article 1 of the Constitution states "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years;" Unfortunately, the seventeenth amendment to the constitution, ratified in 1913, changed the selection of Senators to be elected by the people of the state instead of the legislature. They had been insulated by being at least one step removed from popular vote, they no longer were. The second hope for insulation of the government is the election of the President by the electoral college instead of the popular vote. This insulation has been thinned in most states by forcing the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote, but at least the insulation still exists.
But we have lost the seperation of the legistlative branch from the "tyranny of the majority." Our legislators vote in such a way as to keep their jobs, which means they try to give their constituents the "benefits from the public treasury" and we let them. We keep re-electing the ones who promise the most. Poll after poll finds that citizens don't like congress, but like their own congress person.
