Difference between revisions of "Voting for bread and circuses"
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(Created page with "<hide> page type::article thing type::meme category:memes </hide> ==About== Voting for bread and circuses refers to a popular belief that the common citizens in a...") |
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| − | <p>'Bread and Circuses' is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an | + | <p>'Bread and Circuses' is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. '''For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them''', they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader – the barbarians enter Rome.</p> |
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''(found [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/11649 here]; original source not known, but I am familiar with the quote. [http://astroroach.blogspot.com/2008/10/tyler-cycle-or-bread-and-circuses.html This source] ascribes it to the character [[Lazarus Long]] in ''To Sail Beyond the Sunset'', which is probably correct. --[[User:Woozle|Woozle]] 12:08, 15 January 2012 (EST))'' | ''(found [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/11649 here]; original source not known, but I am familiar with the quote. [http://astroroach.blogspot.com/2008/10/tyler-cycle-or-bread-and-circuses.html This source] ascribes it to the character [[Lazarus Long]] in ''To Sail Beyond the Sunset'', which is probably correct. --[[User:Woozle|Woozle]] 12:08, 15 January 2012 (EST))'' | ||