Hedge, it doesn't matter who's quote it is. What matters is that whoever made that quote is probably right.hedge wrote:So you stole that from some dude who wrote a letter to a newspaper in Oklahoma in 1951. Great, you have proven that people have been whining about democracy when their candidate loses an election since at least 1951...A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.
" In our recent piece on the fiscal cliff and slippery slope we opened with two quotes. One was wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville. Several readers called the error to our attention. The original piece is posted on Cumberland’s website, http://www.cumber.com .
The erroneous section reads “We shall see if Alexis de Tocqueville may be right in his quote, ‘A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.’ ”
I guess we could have written this more accurately by saying, Often wrongly attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, but more likely sourced to an obscure reference in 1951, this quotation applies to the current debate. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of, it can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury.”
One writer for whom we have great respect is Barron’s editorial writer Tom Donlan. He wrote:
“Dear David, Your 2d paragraph quote from Tocqueville is true, but not accurately attributed. It’s from a 1951 letter to the editor of the Daily Oklahoman. The letter-writer (falsely) attributed the quote to Alexander Tytler. For more than you’d ever want to know about it, see http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html . Regards, Tom Donlan”
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/11/to ... -an-error/
No calm down before you give yourself a stroke.