"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Thursday, August 1, 2013

More Gibbon

Gibbon, in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote:

“The five marks of the Roman decaying culture:
  • Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth;
  • Obsession with sex and perversions of sex;
  • Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original;
  • Widening disparity between very rich and very poor;
  • Increased demand to live off the state.” 
Does this sound familiar?

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