From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 94 14:04:19 PDT
To: joshua@cae.retix.com (joshua geller)
Subject: Re: Bad govt represents bad people?
In-Reply-To: <199408311827.LAA12973@sleepy.retix.com>
Message-ID: <199408312104.OAA20620@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> 
> 
I wrote:
> >   After Athenian 
> >   democracy self destructed, the various warring parties found that they 
> >   could only have peace if they disowned omnipotent government.
> 
joshua geller writes
> specifically what period are you referring to here?

The guys that I praised were the same bunch as executed
Socrates.

Now you may well say that that shows that the new arrangement
was seriously imperfect.  But remember that Critias,
Socrates disciple, had led the thirty.  When they
said that Socrates ideas had undermined society they were
not talking about falling church attendance and teenagers
screwing in the back seats.  They were talking about
the reign of terror, civil war, the massive destruction
of property, and large scale massacres.

Indeed it was clearly a violation of the "The ancient
laws and customs of Athens" to execute Socrates, but
after the peace agreement such violations were rare,
whereas before the peace agreement massive violations
had become routine and normal, eventually reaching such
a scale that democracy became irrelevant before it
actually fell.

Of course bad philosophy should be fought with good
philosophy, not by executing bad philosophers.  I
hope, and confidently expect, that after democracy
collapses in the west we will remember that.



-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we              James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.                jamesd@netcom.com