The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Greetings to all in Western Illinois. The race is on.
The weather man is calling for colder weather within two weeks. There is much field work to do yet and NH3 to be applied. It is rainin' as I write.
Could the forecaster be in error in their predictions and has everyone checked and applied proper maintenance to their furnaces?
You see, a farmer is never for want for material to worry about!
My friend, Tim Gibbons, gave me something to think about recently entitled, "How Long Do We Have." I pass it along to you for food for thought just as I received it.
About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor of the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of 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 from 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 great 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 to bondage.
Professor Joseph Olson, of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 presidential election.
Number of states won by: Democrats 19 -Republicans - 29
Square miles of land won by Democrats 580,000 - Republicans 2,427,000
Population of counties won by Democrats: 127 million - Republicans 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Democrats - 13.2 - Republicans 2.1
Professor Olson adds, "In aggregate, the map of territory Republicans won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country.
Democrat 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 "complacency and apathy' phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nations 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.
Apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom. We live in the land of the free, only because of the brave.
Well, there you have it. I have no idea where Mr. Gibbons came across those thoughts. It does, however, cause one to pause for reflection. Myself, I'll make no comment one way to the other, just now.
What I will comment on, however, is how grateful I am for those who unselfishly serve this great country of ours in so many fabulous ways.
November 11, we paused to honor those that serve and have served in our armed forces.
My namesake family has provided relatives in U.S. military service thirteen times, two of which was before there even was a USA.
1) French and Indian Wars.
2) Yankee-Pennananits War
3) American revolution
4) War of 1812
5) Mexican War-1846
6) Civil War
7) Spanish American War
8) World War I
9) World War II
10) Korean Police Action
11) Vietnam
12) Desert Storm
13) Afghanistan War on
Terror and Iraq.
Our family, which is rather large, had a total number in service during World War II totaling 335 with 13 gold stars and 3 silver stars.
They were referred to as a "fighting family" and the U.S. Treasury sold war bonds under our name in 1943.
Now, "everyone's gotta paddle their own canoe" and I'm not telling you of our families war history for any braggin' rights. And, "talkers most times aren't do'ers."
As such, I'm not buying into what Mr. Gibbons wrote, just yet. I'll just keep a watchful eye.
Catch ya, later
Barnyard Bruke