Alexis De Tocqueville

Congress discovered it could bribe the public with public money at least a century ago.

De Tocqueville's first writings on America are more than 225 years old. He predicted the future of this country in 1798.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Yes - and it’s now legal for foreign interests to bribe American representatives. They give the president’s son a multimillion no-show job or buy his paintings for a $million and then his daddy the President goes to work for them.

Interesting that Hunter Biden’s paintings went from selling for $million to being worthless and unsellable now. Mainstream media; “nothing to see here.”

Democrats even outsourced who they would bribe. They opened the boarder, got the illegals all hooked up with taxpayer funded social welfare, and told them if you want to stay on the gravy train vote Democrat.

That’s how you destroy a country.

The passages that have always stuck with me, and emphasize the incredible importance of our Constitutional protections and an independent judiciary, are set forth below. It is incredibly tempting for either party to try to exercise tyranny of the majority when they are in power. Also, very sadly, the Dems promoted court packing when they didn't get their way and Trump is behaving little better with his impeachment nonsense.

{1}A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? . . . For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them. . . .

{2}In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny. When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.

{3}I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure barrier against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government there are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more than in its laws.

Alexis De Tocqueville - Just great. Now I have one more great one to learn about!!!! Oddly I've never heard of him.

Alexis De Tocqueville was an answer in Jeopardy last evening. Thanks to this thread, I could immediately answer. 😊

^^ 1787 Scottish professor Alexander Tyler said in regard to the fall of democracy in Athens: "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 that promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally will collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

Amazing to predict 248 years ago, the downfall of a land in the future, based on the past, for the same reason, because people ignored tha past. Name one thing Biden did that didn't involve generous money from the public treasury. The left bleated about saving democracy, all the while killing it.

@skibum
De Tocqueville, was born in 1805, Democracy in America was published in 1835, he was considered a progressive in his day, and his main themes follow classic liberalism.

@Mogul: When I was a kid, we learned of De Tocqueville, Marx, John Locke and other influential thinkers in our High School history and civics classes. We also delved into what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they constructed the Constitution, including some of the debates that occurred.

But what my kids are getting now is very watered down and simplified stuff. I suspect that, if you are below a certain age, you are a victim of this dramatic lowering of content standards.

If every generation in high school since 1965 had been better taught in civics and history, they would recognize that what we have with judges attempting to seize control of executive functions is a Krytocracy. This is in stark contrast to the Constitution of the United States, which has clearly delegated foreign policy, immigration, national defense, and budgetary discretion to the Executive branch, subject to checks by Congress.

The democrat party wasted hours repeatedly asking executive nominees if they would obey an unlawful instruction from the President, meanwhile their own lawyers go judge-shopping to find immoral judges who issue unlawful rulings meant to usurp power from our lawfully-elected leaders.

@RD
What high school had DeToqueville, Marx, John Locke in High school history classes inI went to high school in the 1960s and civics was taught as public service and citizenship, history was mostly memorization of dates not a tremendous amount of discussion, mostly of events, very little of the politics of those folks, that were just barely mentioned, it was social studies, where politics was discussed, and only acceptable theory was guided by curriculum and the state mandated what could be discussed, most of what you mentioned was in college classes and in my case, as I was at N.Y.Tech majoring in math and computer sciences, in elective classes.

I had a great history teacher in HS who taught us about the Cold War - which was still big a thing in 1979. He was a young Cuban guy. He was clear-eyed and very calm - but hated communism with a passion. I remember him saying then, in 1979, that communism would collapse in less than 10 years due, in part, to the fax machine and the inability of the totalitarian regimes to stop communication. Really made an impression

===> "What high school had DeToqueville, Marx, John Locke in High school history classes"

@25: My school did, at least if you were in the Honors classes. I went to school in MA, which for a very long time has been considered a top state for education in the country and is still ranked #1 by U.S. News and World Report for K-12. Back when I was in school, we had very high participation by Honors students in AP exams for college credits.

Though sadly I'm not sure how much longer this will last. For years the MA school systems have been fighting off attempts by progressives to water down curriculums and testing and to eliminate Honors/AP curriculums, but recently a ballot initiative sponsored by teachers unions successfully removed the MCAS as a HS graduation requirement. The question is whether progressive ideologies will eventually infect other areas and make the MA schools as shitty as the ones in CA and, increasingly, NY.

^As a senior in Massachusetts back in the day we were permitted to take electives. One of my favorite classes in 1974 was Thanatology. Not taught anywhere else as far as I know.

^ What is that exactly, I would assume it is something about dying and possibly covers hospice type of issues, but I have never heard anything about that.

AP US History was one of my most memorable high school classes. My teacher could bore a 5 year old on Red Bull to sleep, but I was fascinated by the chains of events that led to the Civil War, the World Wars, civil rights, and all that.

I realized the fundamental character of America hasn't changed as much as we thought. We've always been optimistic, insubordinate, ornery, and proud, and that's made America special.

^^ Thanatology is the study of death and dying. First mention of it as a field of study is early 60s. In 1969 Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote, "On death and dying", and voila, the 5 stages of grief were born. We read a lot of material including a diary of how Dad felt watching his young son die of cancer, studied how other cultures handled death, and being such a new field it sort of fed into curiosity. It impacted me greatly because it made me look at death and it's role in life when I was 16/17 and because I have been reading about it since then I have no fear of dying. I fear being paralyzed/depenent on others, but death seems natural and normal to me. The negative impact is because I handle death well I get fucked over and end up doing the eulogy for everybody.

^Puddy. The idea we've ever been civil is laughable and everytime I drive through Brooksville Florida I am reminded by that. Why you say? Its named after former Representative from South Carolina Preston Brooks, who is best know for beating Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner into a coma, with his cane, on the Senate Floor. Republican Sumner's crime? An anti-slavery speech. Massachusetts Republicans rock. Trivia time. First african-american elected senator after reconstruction? Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke. God damn, wtf happened here and I mean you, Wu, shame on Wu.

@skibum - yes, I remember that exact same tale. And a bunch of Brooks' constituents gave him canes, many of them gold-headed canes.

We always talk about some golden age of civility that never was. Maybe there were times of more vs less comity but yeah our leaders used to beat the shit out of each other and kill each other in pistol duels.