# Straw Men of Democracy! Savage and Wild! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627 "2008-05-17T02:45:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/21 "2008-05-17T07:42:01Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] Start with _Nine Greek Lives_ by Plutarch, move on to _History of the Peloponnesian War_ by Thucydides, and then _The Histories_ by Herodotus and you’ll see plenty of examples that might worry some of the Founding Fathers. If you read _Nine Greek Lives_ pay special attention to the biography of Alcibiades. The Athenian’s actions in regards to Alcibiades played a significant role in the reason they lost the Peloponnesian War. You’ve been provided answers but they just don’t seem to satisfy you. Marc [/QUOTE] I’m familiar with Thucydides and the instabilities experienced by most of the Greek city states during the Peloponnesian War. It’s been a while since I read the material but I’m familiar with the power struggles between supporters of the oligarchy and their opponents in Attica . I’m also aware of the activities of Alcibiades whose bio is summarised quite well in this piece in Wikipedia [Alcibiades](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades) None of this goes far in explaining the intensity of the vitriol expressed by the ‘founding fathers’ towards ‘democracy’. In any event, none of the constitutions of the ancient period were codified as ‘tightly’, for want of a better word, as a modern constitution would be. You’re correct that I don’t find the answer ‘Ancient Athens was what they meant’ to be satisfying, taking into account the openly expressed hostility by the ‘founding fathers’ against this thing they called ‘democracy’. However, if Ancient Athens is what they meant then my opinion, that the ‘founding fathers’ were simply a bunch of political operators who wanted to make absolutely sure that the common man had no meaningful political power, is strengthened, not diminished. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/22 "2008-05-17T09:30:19Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] I’m familiar with Thucydides and the instabilities experienced by most of the Greek city states during the Peloponnesian War. It’s been a while since I read the material but I’m familiar with the power struggles between supporters of the oligarchy and their opponents in Attica. [/quote] So you’re also familiar with the largess the people of Athens voted for themselves, their belligerent behavior towards other Greeks, and their penchant for becoming tyrannies following civil strife. Also, remember that Athens voted to executed a famous philosopher. That would kind of put me off to the idea of unchecked democracy as well. > [@](#): > > None of this goes far in explaining the intensity of the vitriol expressed by the ‘founding fathers’ towards ‘democracy’. In any event, none of the constitutions of the ancient period were codified as ‘tightly’, for want of a better word, as a modern constitution would be. I think it sets a pretty decent base by which we can begin to examine some of their problems with democracy. As to your second point, so what? What good is a solidly codified constitution in a straight democracy when they can just vote to amend it wily nilly? That isn’t to say that there was no class struggle during the revolution or the construction of the Constitution. If you haven’t read it I recommend _The Unknown American Revolution_ by Gary B. Nash. In it he describes a lot of the class conflicts going on in the colonial American before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. > [@](#): > > However, if Ancient Athens is what they meant then my opinion, that the ‘founding fathers’ were simply a bunch of political operators who wanted to make absolutely sure that the common man had no meaningful political power, is strengthened, not diminished. I think it’s important to note that the Founding Fathers were a diverse group of men who often held positions diametrically opposed to one another. They were not all friends and many of them had radically different ideas of how the United States should be run and what direction it should take in the future. To refer to them as “simply a bunch of political operators” is just as simplistic and incomplete a view of them as worshiping them as demi-gods. Marc Though George Washington, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin qualify as a holy trinity. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/23 "2008-05-17T12:35:45Z")
From the demagoguery of Pericles to the ultimate loss to Sparta, the Athenian democracies (primarily Athens, itself, but with parallel examples among its allies) underwent a steady decline in civility and good sense, with many of the worst decisions being directed by the hordes of increasingly impoverished citizens who clamored for greater vengeance after each loss–prompting foolish decisions that led to greater losses. The disaster that overwhelmed Athens prompted both Plato and Aristotle to rate democracy as one of the worst possible forms of government–a tradition of thought that carried down through the ages. (There really had not been that many democracies, anywhere in history, to examine, but the democracy/mobacracy that resulted in the fall of Athens figured prominently in political thinking in the eighteenth century.) Among the actions of Athens that were **dictated** by the **majority/popular vote** were the persistent executions of any generals involved in a battle loss, regardless of the reason for the loss, so that they deprived themselves of good generals, either by execution or by defection, the pointless and insane Sicilian adventure that could never have produced its intended results, but wound up costing them their entire navy and a complete army, the repeated massacres of smaller cities and hostages, destroying a centuries old tradition of limiting battles to armies and not allowing them to spill over into attacking the civilian populations, and the bankrupting of the treasury to undertake new wars (such as the Sicilian adventure) when they were in the middle of a truce that would have allowed them to recover from previous losses. I doubt that Rome was considered as a democracy. It was, as noted, a republic rather than a democracy and its survival as a republic was significantly longer than that of Athens as a democracy and its fall took longer. (And here, I am ignoring its later history as an oligarchic empire.) In addition, the most serious threats to Rome as a republic prior to the republic’s effective dissolution under Augustus had occurred during the “populist” reforms of the Gracchi brothers, so that even a republic was perceived by the founders of the U.S. as being endangered by mobacracy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/24 "2008-05-17T13:24:16Z")
Y’know, it’s possible some of the quotations in the OP might be spurious. Like the famous [Alexander Tytler](http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp) quotation. (See also [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9637275&highlight=tytler#post9637275)) Or the [Benjamin Franklin quote about the Jews.](http://www.adl.org/special_reports/franklin_prophecy/franklin_prophecy.asp) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/25 "2008-05-17T13:26:53Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Among the actions of Athens that were **dictated** by the **majority/popular vote** were the persistent executions of any generals involved in a battle loss, regardless of the reason for the loss, so that they deprived themselves of good generals, either by execution or by defection, the pointless and insane Sicilian adventure that could never have produced its intended results, but wound up costing them their entire navy and a complete army, the repeated massacres of smaller cities and hostages, destroying a centuries old tradition of limiting battles to armies and not allowing them to spill over into attacking the civilian populations, and the bankrupting of the treasury to undertake new wars (such as the Sicilian adventure) when they were in the middle of a truce that would have allowed them to recover from previous losses. [/QUOTE] But **not** “voting themselves largess.” No democracy has ever ruined itself that way. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/26 "2008-05-17T13:54:14Z")
I’m sure they were mostly referring to Athens. But you should also remember that many of these men, especially the New Englanders, had seen violent mobs up close. That, as much as their knowledge of the history of Greek city-states, probably influenced their thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/27 "2008-05-17T13:59:41Z")
I’ve tracked down one of the quotes: “Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.”-W.H. Seward First of all, Seward wasn’t a founding father. He was a 19th century politician who is most famous for being Presidents Lincoln and Johnson’s secretary of state and buying Alaska from Russia. He was, however, a distinguished politician and orator in his own right. He might have agreed with you about the the problems with worshiping the Constitution too…he famously said, regarding the spread of slavery into the territories: > [@](#): > > The Congress regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. > > But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness. He also, in my favorite quote of his, said about Stephen Douglas’s presidential ambitions, “No man who spells Negro with two 'g’s will become President of the United States” Anyway, when John Quincy Adams (who had been President, ambassador, and congressman) died, Seward, who was then governor of New York, gave a eulogy to him in front of the New York State senate. In it, he said in part (bolding mine) > [@](#): > > John Quincy Adams “loved peace and ensued it.” He loved peace as a Christian, because war was at enmity with the spirit and precepts of a religion which he held to be divine. **As a statesman and magistrate, he loved peace, because war was not merely injurious to national prosperity, but because, whether successful or adverse, it was subversive of liberty. Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.** He favored, therefore, all the philanthropic efforts of the age to cultivate the spirit of peace, and looked forward with benevolent hope to the ultimate institution of a General Congress of nations for the adjustment of their controversies. But he was no visionary and no enthusiast. He knew that as yet war was often inevitable–that pusillanimity provoked it, and that national honor was national property of the highest value; because it was the best national defence. He admitted only defensive war–but he did not narrowly define it. He held that to be a defensive war, which was waged to sustain what could not be surrendered or relinquished without compromising the independence, the just influence, or even the proper dignity of the State. Thus he had supported the war with Great Britain–thus in later years he sustained President Jackson in his bold demonstration against France, when that power wantonly refused to perform the stipulations it had made in a treaty of indemnity; and thus he yielded his support to what was thought a warlike measure of the present administration in the diplomatic controversy with Great Britain concerning the Territory of Oregon. The living and the dead have mutual rights, and therefore it must be added that he considered the present war with Mexico as unnecessary, unjust, and criminal. His opinion on this exciting question is among those on which he referred himself to that future age which he so often constituted the umpire between himself and his contemporaries. So, it wasn’t an attack on democracy, so much as a praise to Adams. And as to which democracy Seward was thinking of when he made the statement, it was probably the United States, which was at the moment at war with Mexico, which Seward, as well as a lot of other people, thought was an unjust war of aggression. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/28 "2008-05-17T16:56:30Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] I’m reasonably familiar with both the Federalist and Anti Federalist papers. I cannot recall any reference to this in any context. [/quote] The Federalist papers are hardly the sole source of American political thought. Scholars far more knowledgable than I have commented on their knowledge of thsoe events, and I know of no reason they wouldn’t have known about them. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/29 "2008-05-17T17:06:04Z")
I’m not sure I see why a representative democracy solves (or at least provides a bulwark against) the problem of the whims of the masses. I mean, if the argument is that many people can be swayed all too easily by events, then surely to have one person in control runs the gambit that that person is not among those easily swayed? After all, if the problem is a majority changing things overnight, then at least there there may be a minority opposed to it. One representative has no majority or minority, only himself. I would say the true bulwark against this kind of problem is the system of checks and balances, seperate powers with the ability to overrule one another, not representative democracy. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/30 "2008-05-17T17:20:36Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] Then why did they need to drag in this scary thing they called ‘democracy’ or ‘democracies’ and all the dreadful things that are supposed to have happened (where? when?) or would inevitably happen under such system? [/QUOTE] I think they had to address it because what they were creating was a flavor of democracy, a representative one. Surely when discussing the idea they’d have had to explore, “okay a type of democracy…but which type…and why not a pure democracy?” [QUOTE=Aquila Be] Has never happened, nowhere, notime, no planet. [/QUOTE] I’m not so sure, though I can’t point to a specific example. But I think the point is moot. In constructing the idea of the United States it was incumbent upon them to attempt to avoid problems that _might_ occur. To try to foresee the pitfalls of any idea considered. No? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/31 "2008-05-17T17:24:02Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] I’m not sure I see why a representative democracy solves (or at least provides a bulwark against) the problem of the whims of the masses. I mean, if the argument is that many people can be swayed all too easily by events, then surely to have one person in control runs the gambit that that person is not among those easily swayed? After all, if the problem is a majority changing things overnight, then at least there there may be a minority opposed to it. One representative has no majority or minority, only himself. I would say the true bulwark against this kind of problem is the system of checks and balances, seperate powers with the ability to overrule one another, not representative democracy. [/QUOTE] I think it is all tied together. But you’re right about checks and balances. That is why we have both a House of Representatives and a Senate. The House is supposedly closer to the passions of the people, while the Senate is a more statesmanlike deliberative body that is tasked with taking a longer view of things. And then Scotus, to make sure we keep the original idea in mind. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/32 "2008-05-17T23:03:17Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] The Federalist papers, where probably most if not all of the quotes come from — Overall, you’re better off to just read the Federalist. [/QUOTE] I’m familiar with the Federalist. Also, to a lesser extent, the anti Federalist. You may or may not be right about the source of the quotes, but the only quote that specifically refers to the Federalist as a source is #4. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/33 "2008-05-17T23:19:15Z")
[QUOTE=Lust4Life] So I’ll go for ancient Athens. [/QUOTE] Fine, but look at each of the eleven quotes individually. For the life of me, It’s not possible to shoehorn Ancient Athens into any of these quotes in anything resembling an honest manner. There might be a partial fit here and there but, for the most part, Ancient Athens is pretty near impossible to identify from those over the top abusive quotes. Some claim that the people of two centuries ago were very knowledgable in the classics, including Athens and Rome. Assuming that’s true, then all they were capable of coming up with is a set of sleazy and dishonest caricatures of the governments of the ancient period. As I indicated previously, It looks very much as if the tricorn elite used these descriptive travesties to push their own political agendas which involved, as their most important central principle, making absolutely sure that the comman man had as little power and influence on politicians and the political process as they could get away with. Hence their defamation of the ‘democracy’ straw man. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/34 "2008-05-17T23:26:23Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Y’know, it’s possible some of the quotations in the OP might be spurious. Like the famous [Alexander Tytler](http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp) quotation. (See also [here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9637275&highlight=tytler#post9637275)) Or the [Benjamin Franklin quote about the Jews.](http://www.adl.org/special_reports/franklin_prophecy/franklin_prophecy.asp) [/QUOTE] Re Tytler, see quote #11 in the OP. Your Franklin reference is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/35 "2008-05-17T23:39:44Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] I’ve tracked down one of the quotes: “Democracies are prone to war, and war consumes them.”-W.H. Seward First of all, Seward wasn’t a founding father. He was a 19th century politician who is most famous for being Presidents Lincoln and Johnson’s secretary of state ---- So, it wasn’t an attack on democracy, so much as a praise to Adams. And as to which democracy Seward was thinking of when he made the statement, it was probably the United States, which was at the moment at war with Mexico, which Seward, as well as a lot of other people, thought was an unjust war of aggression. [/QUOTE] From my OP: > [@](#): > > —a long series of quotes from the so called “Founding Fathers” and other historical figures given to wearing three cornered hats. Tricorns would have been long out of style for Seward. My mistake. Looked at in the full context of the speech you quoted I agree with you. it’s clear that the Seward statement listed as #7 in the OP does not really belong in that group of 11 quotes. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2008, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/36 "2008-05-17T23:53:46Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] I’m sure they were mostly referring to Athens. But you should also remember that many of these men, especially the New Englanders, had seen violent mobs up close. That, as much as their knowledge of the history of Greek city-states, probably influenced their thinking. [/QUOTE] Another vote for poor old Athens. If they were keen to prevent circumstances that encourage the development of violent mobs then they should have said so. A violent mob is not a system of government. My #33 reply to **Lust4Life** would also serve as a response to your reference to their knowledge of Greek city states. The people of 2C ago were just as capable of dissembling, distorting and lying to their fellow citizens in order to achieve the objectives of their own political agenda. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/37 "2008-05-18T00:17:24Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] If they were keen to prevent circumstances that encourage the development of violent mobs then they should have said so. A violent mob is not a system of government. [/QUOTE] Part of your question was why they had “contempt” (your word) for the common man. Their experience with mobs (and particularly seeing how the passions of a mob can be manipulated) might have led them to their views. (What you call “contempt for the common man” I would call legitimate concerns about the ways in which fleeting passions can warp or even destroy democracies. A direct democracy can behave very much _like_ a mob. What might this nation have done in the wake of 9/11 if we were a direct democracy?) I think the founding dads steered the course of the revolution and the nation brilliantly. Things could have gone the way of the French Revolution. > [@](#): > > Another vote for poor old Athens. The word “tyrant” comes from the Greek, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/38 "2008-05-18T02:52:11Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] (There really had not been that many democracies, anywhere in history, to examine, but the democracy/mobacracy that resulted in the fall of Athens figured prominently in political thinking in the eighteenth century.) [/quote] Perhaps that is so. But the high level of abuse directed towards the ‘democracy’ bogeyman should lead one to suspect the motives of those people I quoted. This links to a concise and reasonably accurate history of the ancient Athenian polity:[Prof Samons II](http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/c-d/democracy/athens/who_killed_socrates/index.html) Prof Samons claims: > [@](#): > > Most classical Greeks never adopted the principle that democracy was the only legitimate or best form of government. Indeed, the idea that democracy and only democracy reflects political and social justice is relatively new, postdating, for example, the American Revolution. The founders of the United States viewed democracy of the Athenian type, where citizens exercise direct control over state policy through votes at an assembly, as a particularly unstable form of government. They therefore worked to create buffers between the popular will and legislative or policy decisions. To ‘create buffers’ is putting it mildly. They made absolutely sure that the people’s influence on policy did not exist at all without recourse to: (1) Street demonstrations which might or might not lead to a general insurrection; (2) Periodic elections where the individual voter only has an ephemeral influence, minute to the point of non existence, on which political action group gains the ‘winner take all’ positions of power. I believe that those people I quoted were trying to persuade the common man, using the strongest, scariest, most dishonest and distorted language they could dream up, to accept the principle that he was far too dumb to be trusted with any meaningful political power. So they created this terrifying straw man, a travesty they called ‘democracy’ to help them achieve their own political objective. An elective monarchy. [QUOTE=tomndebb] Among the actions of Athens that were **dictated** by the **majority/popular vote** were the persistent executions of any generals involved in a battle loss, regardless of the reason for the loss, so that they deprived themselves of good generals, either by execution or by defection, the pointless and insane Sicilian adventure that could never have produced its intended results, but wound up costing them their entire navy and a complete army, the repeated massacres of smaller cities and hostages, destroying a centuries old tradition of limiting battles to armies and not allowing them to spill over into attacking the civilian populations, and the bankrupting of the treasury to undertake new wars (such as the Sicilian adventure) when they were in the middle of a truce that would have allowed them to recover from previous losses. [/QUOTE] Over a period of two hundred years between Solon and Socrates Athens alternated between periods of democratic rule, oligarchy and tyranny. Granted that at the height of its power it went through an imperialist style phase directed against some of the city states surrounding Attica, but war was also frequently forced upon it by Sparta and Persia so whatever political system you devised would have been under constant threat and would probably have collapsed or been forced to transform itself drastically from time to time. Over this period, there was hardly a whole series of general executed. The most famous would be the execution of Nicias following the Syracuse naval disaster of 413 and the most significant being the trial and condemnation to death of all eight generals involved in the pyrrhic naval victory at Arginusae in 406. Then, of course, there was the execution of Socrates. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/39 "2008-05-18T03:09:52Z")
[QUOTE=spoke-] The word “tyrant” comes from the Greek, you know. [/QUOTE] Malista. ---
**Author:** ![Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee7513/32.png) [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crocodiles_And_Boulevards)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627/40 "2008-05-19T02:32:04Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] Another vote for poor old Athens. If they were keen to prevent circumstances that encourage the development of violent mobs then they should have said so. A violent mob is not a system of government. My #33 reply to **Lust4Life** would also serve as a response to your reference to their knowledge of Greek city states. The people of 2C ago were just as capable of dissembling, distorting and lying to their fellow citizens in order to achieve the objectives of their own political agenda. [/QUOTE] Why does there need to be an agenda? Couldn’t the “founding fathers” simply have _looked_ at the theory of a direct democracy and _logically_ come to the conclusion that it was a perilous form of government? Or would I be dissembling, distorting, and lying if I wrote about how I think using a bazooka to kill household pets would be a terrible idea? The founding fathers were **not** the first group of people to discuss and criticize democracy. If you’re as well read as you say you are, you should be able to think of any number of prominent philosophers and political scientists who had a poor opinion of democratic governance. Frequently cited in these instances are cases of personal interactions with town meetings, committees, and mobs. It’s outrageously short-sighted to dismiss those common examples as not being influential to the argument of why straight democracies might fail. It’s plainly obvious that if a city’s populace can be convinced to make a poorly thought-out decision, then a country’s population is only slightly more difficult to convince. Particularly at a time when only some in the population were well-educated and there was no mass media to disseminate certain rudimentary ideologies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/straw-men-of-democracy-savage-and-wild/449627.md?page=3)