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The best state is pastoral, small in size, ethnically and culturally homogeneous, with one official religion, ruled by a king with an aristocracy, landed gentry, and serfs.
All citizens, including the serfs, own their own homes and land. They give a portion of their crop to the king, which pays for his retainers and the defense of the realm, and another tithe to the Church. The church, which is Roman Catholic, provides for the needy.
The theology of the Church is based on Aristotle and Aquinas.
This is more or less the way things were in Western Europe from roughly 500 A.D. to 1400 A.D. From what I can tell, it worked just fine.
First time I heard someone refer to the Dark Ages as an era when "it worked just fine"!
The shameful display of public fawning and lavishing of praise....directed to someone who possesses an endless capacity for soaking it up are embarrassing....Being engulfed by the cult of personality and celebrity is a clear and present danger to our government.
I seem to remember that happening when Obama was president.
Some of the posts from Trump supporters are frightening. The shameful display of public fawning and lavishing of praise .... Being engulfed by the cult of personality and celebrity is a clear and present danger to our government.
LOL
And you don't think that "cult of personality" and public (and media!) praise went on with Obama. It was and still is sickening.
Perhaps you forgot MSNBC's Chris Mathews "A thrill went up my leg" over an Obama speech......
First time I heard someone refer to the Dark Ages as an era when "it worked just fine"!
I've never heard anything bad about the so-called Dark Ages.
All the nasty stuff in Europe started later on: Spanish Inquisition, 30 years war, 100 years war, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, hysteria over witches, etc.
Yes, there were the Crusades -- fully justified after 300 years of Muslim attacks on Christians in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.
The "Dark Ages" gave us magnificent cathedrals and castles, jousts and tournaments, troubadours, courtly love, a code of knightly chivalry, illuminated manuscripts, all kinds of good stuff.
People felt at one with the universe, which for them was both spiritual and material.
They conceived the universe as a set of concentric crystal spheres representing a "great chain of being" incorporating both nature and God.
We look down on them, but look at us -- a nation of wage and salary slaves for the most part, ruled by the market and the special interests behind the scenes, most of us owning little but our own labor. Our children consigned to schools where they are subjected to mindless propaganda and happythink. Our elders shoved away in nursing homes to slowly rot away. By any historical standard, we are nothing to write home about.
Last edited by dechatelet; 12-21-2017 at 08:05 AM..
What are we? We're an oligarchy. We are ruled by a small, unaccountable elite.
Rule by such an oligarchy is tyranny.
So both number 3 (oligarchy) and number 5 (tyranny) describe America today.
I'm in favor of "democracy" only in the sense that I think that national leaders should look out for their people's interests.
That hasn't happened in our democratic republic (or republican democracy) for the last hundred years.
Or ever, if you really look back into our history.
We were an oligarchy from day one.
"Democracy" and "Republic" were just words used to conceal that fact.
I can agree with some of what you're saying here. For example, that our current 'Ship of State' is being 'captained' by a "small, unaccountable elite". However this does not comport with Plato's vision & utopian ideal. Plato envisioned benevolent men (of the philosopher king type) with absolute power & with easy & thorough access to the 'Form of the Good' (another of his conceptual metaphors).
Some folks still dream of something similar ~ here's Leonard Cohen's take on Plato's 'Ship of State' metaphor, partial lyrics to 'Democracy':
Quote:
...Sail on, sail on
I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the USA
Trump supporters keep speaking of "tyranny' yet we have a President who is deeply ignorant of the Constitution (as are his supporters, of course) and wishes to supersede established laws with executive orders
Funny you say that because just about all Obama did was EO's...most of them unconstitutional...Trump is simply using EO's to UN-EO Obamas shameful EO's.
You don't sound especially crazy about it, yourself.
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I can agree with some of what you're saying here. For example, that our current 'Ship of State' is being 'captained' by a "small, unaccountable elite". However this does not comport with Plato's vision & utopian ideal. Plato envisioned benevolent men (of the philosopher king type) with absolute power & with easy & thorough access to the 'Form of the Good' (another of his conceptual metaphors).
