From the movie Gladiator in 2000, the character Marcus Aurelius said "There was a dream that was Rome. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile."
The character was correct, of course. A republic is fragile, and is blown away by a "whisper", that being the whisper of the part of the human psyche the produces things like greed and selfishness. These things lead voters to vote favors to themselves and punishments to their perceived enemies. It leads people in positions of power to seek more power, or to fight to maintain their power longer than they deserve to have it, and leads them to wield it as a weapon.
One major thing to consider is that when republics fall, they don't always just go away. They often turn into something else. A monster rising from something that was once good. The Roman Empire rose from the Roman Republic.
Ben Franklin, when asked whether the Founders had produced a monarchy or a republic, stated "a Republic! If you can keep it."
This was his version of the probably fictional quote from Marcus Aurelius.
This one from Ayn Rand is relevant as well: "The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
When this comes to pass, as it likely already has, you know that your republic is gone.
Amen.
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