Nuts. The last name on that list should be “Socrates.” Sorry.
My last post should read:
‘
“The Greeks do not have a long history with democracy”
Sigh.
Yours is certainly an interesting perspective, but it perhaps blinds us to this alternate point of view:
The Greeks have a very long history with democracy, and of episodes where that democracy struck out at prominent leaders to its detriment.
The fates of many, including Thucydides, Themistocles, Alcibades, and, perhaps most dramatically, Socrates, show definite parallels to the current situation.
The Greeks were a monarchy 40 years ago. The democracy of 2,500 years ago has no bearing on operating a successful government today.
I have to side with Pan Yan on this one. Even the so-called golden age of democracy in Athens was interspersed by periods of rule by tyrants, and many cities in ancient Greece, such as Sparta, were never democracies. After that there were more than 2,000 years of rule by Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans.