I saw the following in a comment by my favorite trouble maker mynym, and wanted to republish him here. Nice.
They don’t even deserve Liberty, so the end of the cycle of civilization fits them:Plato says that from the exaggerated license which people call liberty, tyrants spring up as from a root…and that at last such liberty reduces a nation to slavery. Everything in excess is changed into its opposite…For out of such an ungoverned populace one is usually chosen as a leader…someone bold and unscrupulous…who curries favor with the people by giving them other men’s property. To such a man….the protection of public office is given, and continually renewed. He…emerges as a tyrant over the very people who raised him to power. –Cicero (De republica, i, 2.)
