Plato’s Laws1
Time does not march uniformly forward.
Sometimes it takes giant steps back.
Like now.
Plato would be appalled,
or not.
He understood how fragile was
the rule of man.
Plato understood the need for laws.
More importantly, for laws to govern,
he understood that man needed respect
for a higher law.
Call it Got, call it faith, call it belief,
it doesn’t matter, without that respect,
laws are empty vessels.
It is ironic
that those who chatter the loudest
about the need to follow a higher law
are the first to subvert
the only law that is capable
of letting us live in harmony
on this earth.
#1,115
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Plato’s Republic is his most famous political work, but it is in his Laws, largely overlooked by scholars, that Plato identifies the key ingredient in what is needed to make a successful and enduring Democracy. ↩︎