Soon after the government’s initial $700 billion bailout, one of my elder relatives sent along this: “More than 200 years ago, while the original 13 colonies were still part of Great Britain, Professor Alexander Tytler wrote of the Athenian republic, which had fallen 2,000 years earlier: “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...
