Recently, I attended a panel discussion titled, “Surviving the Economic Meltdown” that provided a hard look at the facts of our current economic environment.

The conference brochure included a penned by Alexander Tyler in 1781 – before America had gained independence. It reads:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist until the time 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 following addendum was added some time later.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been approximately two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

From dependence back again to bondage

Rather sobering, isn’t it? Where do you think our country falls in that sequence?

My thought is that we need to take care to get our “environment” the right way if we are to have the freedom to do what we do best – people helping people.