On 3/11/07, Bartning@aol.com Bartning@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 3/6/2007 4:19:22 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, andrew.cady@gmail.com writes:
Please remember that (if we are to believe the dialogue) Socrates could have fled, but chose to drink the hemlock out of respect for the authority of Athenian government. Even where the state murders to censor critics, its dictates are not to be resisted. That is the mentality of Plato.
You have misread the dialogue. Socrates has respect for the *law* not a respect for the government or his judges. In fact he insults his judges by suggesting as an alternate penalty for himself a state pension and additional perquisites. Furthermore, Socrates famously declined to assent to a state (government) decrees implementation when it was not based on law (the trial of the generals of the Sicilian campaign). Please do understand that the law is totally and categorically separate from the state and the government.
I won't touch on whether Athens was "true democracy."
Socrates was a fan of Spartas raw democracy, but other observers of the time claimed that Athens was best ruled when it was ruled neither by the "mob" (democracy) nor by the "tyrants" (rule of 30), but by a "select group" (rule of 5000).