The Attributable Lasee

Frank Lasee reads YLFB. For serious. He posted another quote today, but with a few differences from his normal parroting that are obviously a result of the criticisms on this blog. From the horse's mouth:

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 that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always votes 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.
--attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler

First, after all of the crap we've given him for quoting people, Frank's decided instead to "attribute" this retarded little blurb to Alexander Fraser Tytler, an 18th century Scotsman. When you check out Mr. Tytler's wikipedia entry, they do in fact make reference to the nugget of idiocy with which Frank chose to associate himself:

"The following unverified quotation has been attributed to Tytler, most notably as part of a longer piece which began circulating on the Internet shortly after the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election[1]:"

Ah, it was a chain letter! Now we're moving back to traditional Franky, who apparently still thinks that quotes from chain letters are appropriate bases for legislative policy. Why does Frank like chain letters so much? As Howie beat into my head, let's go to the definitions. From wikipedia:

"Although no state or federal laws currently exist banning chain letters; they are viewed as a general nuisance as that frequenly multiplying letters clog up the postal system and do not function as correspondence mail, but rather, a game."

Now we're in LaseeLand: Viewed as a general nuisance, clogging up the system, treating something serious as a game. If ever there were a better metaphorical representation of the Lasee era in Wisconsin, it'd have to involve some sort of defecation.

To spend just a second on the "content" of the attribution, can anyone out there think of one democratic government that has spent itself into dictatorship? Dr. Nugz and I pondered this question at some length to no avail. Moreover, how would Franky reconcile the quote, which says politicians must spend money to help the people, with his continued term of office despite screwing everyone over all the time? Is Frank implicitly asserting that his nuisance-y legislative game that's clogging up Wisconsin is keeping us from a dictatorship?

By the way, the point in the quote, "[a] democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government" reminded me of The Onion article proclaiming that political scientists have discovered a new form of government! C'mon Frank, treating a democracy like an atom with a half-life is something only the genious' at The Onion can come up with nowadays, and they don't even write chain letters.