Blackburn says that “Plato had certainly aristocratic and elitist leanings.” Plato was actually born an

aristocrat. His father was a descendant of the famous Codrus, the ideal patriotic king while his mother descended

from a brother of the great Athenian lawgiver Solon. Solon believed that the perfectly just state was developed

from the eternal ideals of morality and reason. Plato inherited these ideals from his great uncle and focused on

the problem of getting citizens to be virtuous and obedient to the state’s moral laws.

Plato believed that even a democracy can ruin itself by excess of democracy. Democracy becomes

disastrous because the people are not properly equipped by education to select the best rulers and the wisest

courses. “As to the people they have no understanding (knowledge) and only repeat what their rulers (the power

elites) tell them.” Unguided by knowledge, the people are a multitude without order, like desires in disarray; the

people need the guidance of philosophers to act as their guardians. Plato’s guardians were by definition good and

wise and knowledgeable. The more Plato thinks about it, the more astounded he is at the folly of leaving to feeble

minded public the selection of the state’s political officials to rule over them and to guide the State well. Plato was

also aware of the wealthy power elite strategists in ancient Athens who pulled the oligarchic wires behind the

so-called democratic state. According to Plato, Philosophy was a way of living honorably and the state’s highest

virtue is education and justice. So only a philosopher-king was fit to guide a nation: “Until philosophers are kings,

or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership

meet in the same man...city States will never cease from ill, nor the human race.” This is the keystone of the arch

of Plato’s thought.

What is also interesting is that the ancient Jews and modern Zionists also were fascinated by Plato’s “The

Republic.” In “Jewish History, Jewish Religion” Israel Shahak says: “Ben-Gurion did not pretend that the

re-establishment of the kingdom of David and Solomon would benefit anybody except the Jewish state. Using the

concepts of Platonism to analyze Israeli policies based on ‘Jewish ideology’ should not seem strange. It was

noticed by several scholars, of whom the most important was Moses Hadas, who claimed that the foundations of

‘classical Judaism’, that is, of Judaism as it was established by Talmudic sages, are based on Platonic influences

and especially on the image of Sparta as it appears in Plato.

According to Hadas ("Hellenistic Culture, Fusion, and Diffusion" NY 1959), a crucial feature of the Platonic

political system, adopted by Judaism as early as the Maccabean period (142-63 BC), was ‘that every phase of

human conduct be subjected to religious sanctions which are in fact to be manipulated by the ruler.’ There can

be no better definition of ‘classical Judaism’ and of the ways in which the rabbis manipulated it than this Platonic

definition. In particular Hadas claims that Judaism adopted what ‘Plato himself summarized as the objectives of

his program’ , in the following well-known passage: ‘The principal thing is that no one, man or woman, should

ever be without an officer set over him, and that none should get the mental habit of taking any step, whether in

earnest or in jest, on his individual responsibility. In peace as in war he must live always with his eyes on his

superior officer...In a word, we must train the mind not even to consider acting as an individual or know how to do

it.’ Plato, The Republic.

It was the above quoted passage which was chosen by Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies

as describing the essence of ‘a closed society.’ If the word ‘rabbi’ (master, teacher) is substituted for ‘an officer’

we will have a perfect image of classical Judaism. The latter is still deeply influencing Israeli-Jewish society and

determining to a large extent the Israeli policies.. Historical Judaism and its two successors, Jewish Orthodoxy

and Zionism, are both sworn enemies of the concept of the open society as applied to Israel. A Jewish state,

whether based on its present Jewish ideology or, if it becomes even more Jewish in character than it is now, on

the principles of Jewish Orthodoxy, cannot ever contain an open society. It can become a fully closed and warlike

ghetto, a Jewish Sparta, supported by the labor of Arab helots, kept in existence by its influence on the U.S.

political establishment and by threats to use its nuclear power, or it can try to become an open society. The second

choice is dependent on a honest examination of its Jewish past, on the admission that Jewish chauvinism and

exclusivism exist, and on a honest examination of the attitudes of Judaism towards the non-Jews.”

Professor Blackburn said that The Republic is “a dangerous book (because) if you convince yourself that

you’re amongst the elite or that you alone are privy to the eternal truths...then you can become a very dangerous

person.” Plato never became a “dangerous person” - only the greatest of philosophers. I wonder what Professor

Blackburn thinks if a nation comprised of people who earnestly believe that they have been specially Chosen by

God to be His representatives on earth (and who are all directly descendant from Abraham) and “think of

themselves as among the elite or God’s Chosen people are dangerous?

You are way out on your interpretation of ancient greek society

was it not in Athens that the first people's revolution occured? didn't the peasants woke up one day n run all the rich landowners out? was it NOT in the old city under acropolis they held their first demogratic discusion? each n every citizen was allowed to n attented most meetings, been explained to what the meeting was about n then given two pepples a black for NO and a white for YES!

was it not an anwritten law that EVERYBODY WAS ALLOWED TO ATTENT? EVEN FOREIGNERS? didn't Athens went to war for these princibles with SPARTA?

WHY DO NEOCONS are trying to justify their facist ways by compairing themself with the best n most demogratic society the ever existed on planet earth?? when did we the greeks EVER behaved like you FACIST NEOCONS? many greeks died during WW2 in greece to save jewish citizens is that a facist way to behave or a liberal demogratic way? only in Salonika did the germans made an aggreement with the greek resistance not to murder any more jews?

was it NOT Churchill who said MEN DON'T FIGHT LIKE HEROS, HEROS FIGHT LIKE GREEKS, yet the same man turned british guns against us because we refused to have a facist right wing pro western government! then the Americans game in for the kill n after A huge civil war 1of many years 100s of 1000s of my people died from american guns CAUSE THE AMERICANS WANTED TO INSTALL A FACIST RIGHT WIGN GOVERNMENT WITH A GERMAN KING!!!!!AGAINST THE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE,

are you trying to turnish a wonderful period in human history to justify your DOG EATS DOG philosophy, Alexander the great didn't concoured the world to enslave it but to create a more even society encouraging many of his troops to mary local girls n treated them as their equals unlike you neocons! didn't 300 spartans saved europe from the armies of persia?? n that consequently allowed demogracy to flurish? for all our benefit?

neocons!!! you better compaire yoursels with the nazis in germany is what you really are, worse even than the gestapo but somehow through your control of the US news media you are poisoning american minds on a daily basis!

you may wrtite all the lies you wish you control everything BUT that don't mean you are wtitting the truth!