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Sunday, July 31. 2016

Philosopher Kings


Outside Plato's fantasies, the Philosopher Kings always turn out to be power-mad psychotics divorced from reality and morality. Governance by your moral and intellectual superiors, that is, by the genius experts: The Fourth Circle of Statist Hell


Posted by The News Junkie in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 09:07 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Venezuela could be used to create an entire college degree program in economics, socialism or politics. I hope the experts and authors are watching Venezuela closely and taking notes. I suspect though that the only "experts" interested in what is going on in Venezuela are pro-socialism and will twist and spin the results like a Zach would.

I hope Venezuela gets out of their hell soon. The simplest way would be for the army to pull a coup or for the citizens to get angry enough to storm the palace and hang Maduro from a lamp post.
#1 SweetPea on 2016-07-31 11:30 (Reply)
"Venezuela certainly would be a perfect (in a bad way) example."

Something I learned in '70-'71: There is no better example to learn from than a really good Bad Example. (If you can figure out WHY it's so bad.)
#2 Sam L. on 2016-07-31 18:46 (Reply)
That's why it is more illuminating to read Machiavelli than Plato when it comes to the real world of political power.

I strongly recommend a recent Italian biography of Machiavelli:
https://www.amazon.com/Niccolos-Smile-Machiavelli-Maurizio-Viroli/dp/0374528004/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
#3 Whitehall on 2016-08-01 03:53 (Reply)
Thanks for the recommendation. A fascinating man who deserves to be studied.
#3.1 jma on 2016-08-01 07:16 (Reply)

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