Guest commentary by Bill Dauterieve:

I was watching "Black Hawk Down" yesterday night. It is a testament to the courage, honor and commitment of American soldiers. I liked the Hollywood treatment of soldiers as a bunch of different guys. You had Obi Wan Kenobi as a office clerk, the Incredible Hulk as a Fonzie like Delta Force fighter, and Lucius Malfoy from Harry Potter as a by-the-book Ranger. When they were under the gun, they set aside all their differences and fought as a single unit. They left no one behind. It was a microcosm of American life and how people should act when
under attack. But, they are soldiers and are cut from a different
cloth than the rest of Americans. Instead of setting aside our
differences, we have all this infighting. And that got me thinking. I
saw that Argentines are commemorating their 1973 military coup that
eventually brought Gen Pinochet to power. Those on the Left mourn that
day. Those on the Right mark it as a necessary evil. Still, Chile is
a divided society.

Then that got me thinking some more. I thought of Socrates and the
crimes he was alleged to have committed. He was accused of corrupting
the youth of Athens. As he lived in Greece, you might imagine that
corrupting the youth means you have to be some sort of monster. In
their society, banging young boys was a-okay. So you had to do an
awful lot to get accused of harming young people.

Then it hit me. Socrates was the first Liberal. His crime was that of
luring the young citizens of Athens away from productive lives as
artisans and merchants. He was a little bit like the Michael Moore of
his day. He attacked the paid pundits of his time. He basically
called the whole world a bunch of bullshit and recommended reworking
the whole society with strong governmental influence and limited
personal choice except for a select elite. He was accused of "making
the weaker argument seem stronger". He liked to criticize for the sake
of criticizing. Athens was one of the most just, free and egalitarian
societies of its time. But that was not good enough for him.

For that he was put to death.

I am not judging Socrates. I still think of him as that lovable guy from the Bill and Ted movie. But I do think he is the unsatisfiable father of all Leftists.

Posted by: Rusty at 08:29 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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