OWS Activists Learn about Pure Democracy, the Hard Way

Here’s what Plato wrote about democracy almost 2350 years ago: “ . . . do you notice how tender they make the citizen’s soul, so that if someone proposes anything that smacks in any way of slavery, they are irritated and can’t stand it? And they end up, as you well know, by paying no attention to the laws, written or unwritten, in order that they may avoid having any master at all.” Republic 563d

And here’s what’s been happening at OWS LA :  good uber-democratic OWS organizers being told to “F*#% your procedure!”

Poor things.  I guess they never read about how, when a democratic group gets “more drunk than it should on this unmixed draught” of freedom, that “unless the leaders are very gentle and provide a great deal of freedom, it punishes them, charging them with being polluted and oligarchs.”  (562d)

So it goes, the unforgiving real wheel of history.  But again, the stage is set for some serious violence soon . . . I hope the gentle ones realize that now and get out.