The Daily Skunk

I didn’t write this, but I find it very interesting.

William

______________________________________

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new
>> >constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at
>> >the
>> >University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian
>> >Republic some 2,000 years earlier:
>> >
>> > “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 they can vote themselves generous gifts fr om the public
>> >treasury.”
>> >
>> > “From that moment on, the majority always vote 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.”
>> >
>> > “The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the
>> >beginning of history, has been about 200 years.”
>> >
>> > “During those 200 years, those nations always progressed
>> > through
>> >the following sequence:
>> >
>> > 1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
>> > 2. from spiritual faith to g reat courage;
>> > 3. from courage to liberty;
>> > 4. from liberty to abundance;
>> > 5. from abundance to complacency;
>> > 6. from complacency to apathy;
>> > 7. from apathy to dependence;
>> > 8. From dependence back into bondage”
>> >
>> >
>> > Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St.
>> >Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000
>> >Presidential election:
>> >
>> > Number of States won by: Gore: 19; Bush: 29
>> > Square miles of land won by: Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,42 7,000
>> > Population of counties won by: Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143
>> >million
>> > Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Gore:
>> > 13.2;
>> >Bush: 2.1
>> >
>> >
>> > Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory
>> > Bush
>> >won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great
>> >country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in
>> >government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government
>> >welfare…”
>> >
>> > Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
>> >”complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of
>> >democracy, wit h some forty percent of the nation’s population already
>> >having reached the “governmental dependency” phase.
>> >
>> > If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million
>> >criminal invaders called illegal’s and they vote, then we can say
>> >goodbye
>> >to the USA in fewer than five years.

This is a copy of a post I made a few months back.

 How far are we going to let the media go? How much do we deserve to know? What will it take before we realize that many times the media is more of a problem than a valuable informational resource. I can’t believe the evolution within the media world that I have observed in my short life. Now it isn’t uncommon to see a crime scene on the news with a chalk outline of a body, blood all around it and empty casings fired from a gun or a reporter live on the scene with a kids bike crushed beneath a vehicle in the background and a child’s shoe laying on the street in the foreground. Why do we need to see this outline, the blood, the shoe? The information is the same without the picture isn’t it?

Worse than these are the graphic, detailed descriptions and live reporting of school shootings. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if the information that is broadcast actually promotes copycat crimes. This is not my original idea by the way. Think about it, how many school shootings did you know about before the notorious Columbine? I tried to find this information and I couldn’t find anything documented on a school shooting by a student or other person before the Columbine massacre. I did find an interesting blog on the copycat school shootings which I will post at the bottom of this article though.

I know the argument could be made that we see all sorts of monstrosities on television programs all the time � I know this, they undoubtedly give someone who is mentally unstable ideas as well. The biggest difference with the tv program and the media is that the media is presenting reality.

I welcome the response along the lines of freedom of speech, where do you draw the line, etc. It is called ethics and there is probably a pretty reasonable way to determine what kind of information could trigger this copycat effect.

The Copycat Effect � Predicted: More School Shootings

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2006/10/predicted-more-school-shootings.html

William