Kerry is a pilot?

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message ...

I'm sorry, I should have said the CONTENT was fairly accurate, not the
attribution. I have no doubt that the cite of Tyler, Tytler, Tittie, or
whomever is wrong. And as I said, the second part is really bogus
regardless of who wrote it, in either the 18th or 20th century.

So, all in all, I agree with your conclusion.

Ah, now I understand what you were getting at. Sorry -- I thought you
meant the quote was valid, but the date of the quote was in question
(which seemed kind of a strange argument). I should've read more
carefully.

I agree that a democracy is doomed when its citizens start "voting
themselves largesse from the public treasury." That part seems true
enough.

I think a large part of the appeal of the alleged Tytler quote is due
to the implication that an expert in world history from the early
1800s *predicted* the United States would suffer from moral decay and
"loose fiscal policy," which will be evident by the masses always
voting for whomever promises them the most kickbacks from the public
treasury. Further, he supposedly predicted this would happen in about
200 years! Amazingly this is just about equal to the age of the
United States (especially considering the fact that this quote seems
to have made its first appearance in the 1980s).

If, as I contend, Tytler had nothing to do with this quote, then it
becomes *much* less compelling. I doubt this quote would be at all
popular if, instead of Tytler, it was said to have been written by
someone in the 1980s -- especially if they had no particular knowledge
of world history as appears to be the case since the alleged quote
does not accurately describe what it's supposed to describe: the fall
of the Athenian Republic.

If instead of "Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish History Professor in
1801 wrote the following...," the quote were to read, "I was having
some beers with my cousin Hank last week and he said the
following...," then I really doubt anyone would think this quote was
worth the bandwidth used to send it along.

I guess my point here is "authorship counts." Note also how popular
the murder-rate comparison is. I doubt those numbers would be as
widely circulated if someone hadn't slipped Professor Olson's name in
front of them. People look to authorship in an effort to judge
whether an idea is likely to be true.

So if Tytler isn't the source of the quote (and I'm pretty darn sure
he isn't), suddenly it loses just about all of its credibility.

-Mike P.

"Mike Powell" wrote in message
om...
"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

I'm sorry, I should have said the CONTENT was fairly accurate, not the
attribution. I have no doubt that the cite of Tyler, Tytler, Tittie, or
whomever is wrong. And as I said, the second part is really bogus
regardless of who wrote it, in either the 18th or 20th century.

So, all in all, I agree with your conclusion.

Ah, now I understand what you were getting at. Sorry -- I thought you
meant the quote was valid, but the date of the quote was in question
(which seemed kind of a strange argument). I should've read more
carefully.

I agree that a democracy is doomed when its citizens start "voting
themselves largesse from the public treasury." That part seems true
enough.

I think a large part of the appeal of the alleged Tytler quote is due
to the implication that an expert in world history from the early
1800s *predicted* the United States would suffer from moral decay and
"loose fiscal policy," which will be evident by the masses always
voting for whomever promises them the most kickbacks from the public
treasury. Further, he supposedly predicted this would happen in about
200 years!

Some were quicker, some took a lot longer.

Amazingly this is just about equal to the age of the
United States (especially considering the fact that this quote seems
to have made its first appearance in the 1980s).

I think Livy made generally the same point about the Roman Empire.


If, as I contend, Tytler had nothing to do with this quote, then it
becomes *much* less compelling. I doubt this quote would be at all
popular if, instead of Tytler, it was said to have been written by
someone in the 1980s -- especially if they had no particular knowledge
of world history as appears to be the case since the alleged quote
does not accurately describe what it's supposed to describe: the fall
of the Athenian Republic.

I'm guessing he (or whoever) was referring to the Roman "Bread and Circus"
debacle.

If instead of "Alexander Fraser Tytler, Scottish History Professor in
1801 wrote the following...," the quote were to read, "I was having
some beers with my cousin Hank last week and he said the
following...," then I really doubt anyone would think this quote was
worth the bandwidth used to send it along.

I guess my point here is "authorship counts." Note also how popular
the murder-rate comparison is. I doubt those numbers would be as
widely circulated if someone hadn't slipped Professor Olson's name in
front of them. People look to authorship in an effort to judge
whether an idea is likely to be true.

I'm not so interested in authorship (argument from authority) as whether a
quote conforms to facts of reality.


So if Tytler isn't the source of the quote (and I'm pretty darn sure
he isn't), suddenly it loses just about all of its credibility.

Not really; does historical FACT support the firt part of the quote?
Certainly the second part DOES NOT.

"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message ...

I'm not so interested in authorship (argument from authority) as whether a
quote conforms to facts of reality.


Generally I'm not either. But in this particular case, the quote is
made much more interesting and given much greater credence simply
because it is attributed to a history professor (aka a very smart guy)
who wrote it about 200 years ago (thus making him somewhat
prophetic... at least in the minds of some conservatives).

So because this particular quote is so often used in this unusual way
(i.e., the smart, prophetic guy part), authorship is very relevant.

Consider this: nobody *really* cares that it was Samuel Clemens (I
think) who said "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are
statistics." They don't care because the quote conveys an interesting
idea that's fully independent of who said it. In the case of the
alleged Tytler quote, however, the fact that Tytler said it is (in my
opinion, at least) an essential part of why it's so popular.

As an aside, I was given an interesting link in another newsgroup.
This is from a FAQ at the University of Edinburgh Library (where
Tytler was a professor and they maintain a large collection of his
work). Basically it says they've searched and searched but can't find
anything like the alleged quote in their collection of Tytler's work.
I think it's pretty safe to say that Tytler is *not* responsible for
this quote. Here's the link:

http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/faqs/parqs.shtml#Aftytler1



So if Tytler isn't the source of the quote (and I'm pretty darn sure
he isn't), suddenly it loses just about all of its credibility.

Not really; does historical FACT support the firt part of the quote?
Certainly the second part DOES NOT.

By the first part, do you mean?:

"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."

If so, then I don't disagree - at least not much. This part seems
almost prima facie true. Where I take issue with the quote is when it
starts talking about the 200-year average life of the world's greatest
civilizations (the number just seems 5X-10X too low).

But whether historical fact supports this first part of the quote is a
wholly separate question. I'm not so sure it does. There haven't
been all that many democracies in history, so it's a bit premature to
claim they are always "temporary in nature" and that they will fall
apart only when the majority starts voting themselves "gifts." This
isn't why the Athenian republic failed. And I can't think of any
democracy that has failed principally for this reason. So I doubt
there's historical support for it.

-Mike P.

"Mike Powell" wrote in message
om...
"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in message
...

I'm not so interested in authorship (argument from authority) as whether
a
quote conforms to facts of reality.


Generally I'm not either. But in this particular case, the quote is
made much more interesting and given much greater credence simply
because it is attributed to a history professor (aka a very smart guy)
who wrote it about 200 years ago (thus making him somewhat
prophetic... at least in the minds of some conservatives).

I'm not aware that those are the reasons it was given credibility. The first
time I heard it several years ago, it just had a name attached to it with no
mention of his credentials.


So because this particular quote is so often used in this unusual way
(i.e., the smart, prophetic guy part), authorship is very relevant.

Consider this: nobody *really* cares that it was Samuel Clemens (I
think) who said "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are
statistics." They don't care because the quote conveys an interesting
idea that's fully independent of who said it. In the case of the
alleged Tytler quote, however, the fact that Tytler said it is (in my
opinion, at least) an essential part of why it's so popular.

And that's my point. I have a wholeslew of quotes that go back to antiquity
and have no known author (note, too, how many are merely listed as
"Anonymous".

I doubt 1% of people know who Tyler/Tytler is.


As an aside, I was given an interesting link in another newsgroup.
This is from a FAQ at the University of Edinburgh Library (where
Tytler was a professor and they maintain a large collection of his
work). Basically it says they've searched and searched but can't find
anything like the alleged quote in their collection of Tytler's work.
I think it's pretty safe to say that Tytler is *not* responsible for
this quote. Here's the link:

http://www.lib.ed.ac.uk/faqs/parqs.shtml#Aftytler1
[snip]

But whether historical fact supports this first part of the quote is a
wholly separate question. I'm not so sure it does. There haven't
been all that many democracies in history, so it's a bit premature to
claim they are always "temporary in nature" and that they will fall
apart only when the majority starts voting themselves "gifts." This
isn't why the Athenian republic failed.

Not exactly, but Athens did get very lazy and complacent as they did have
what we'd call "collectivism".


And I can't think of any
democracy that has failed principally for this reason. So I doubt
there's historical support for it.

Rome, and a few of the quasi-democracies in Europe. They didn't necessarily
fail, but they sure stunted themselves.

Time will tell (and I thinks that's what the quote represents).