In 399 B.C., the philospher Socrates was put on trial, charged with sacrilege. He was tried, and found guilty. He was sentenced to death.
What happened next?
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In 399 B.C., the philospher Socrates was put on trial, charged with sacrilege. He was tried, and found guilty. He was sentenced to death.
What happened next? Socrates had many friends and disciples, and a a group of them gathered together to help their teacher and benefactor. They bribed the guards of the jail. They arranged for a team of horses to stand ready, to whisk him away from Athens, to another city where he might be safe. In effect, they had fixed things for him so that he would not have to suffer the punishment that had been decreed by the court.
Did Socrates accept their help? Did he attempt to mount that horse, and ride away to safety?
If this were the story of Scooter Libby, instead of Socrates, the answer is clear: of course he would have escaped when given the chance. Running away, accepting special help, taking advantage of his position in society, and his relationships with powerful individuals -- these things come naturally to someone like Scooter Libby. There can be no doubt that the same would be true of any of his co-conspirators.
But accepting this kind of help was NOT acceptable to Socrates. His friends pleaded with him to go, to flee to safety, so SAVE HIS LIFE. He refused. He remained in his cell. And the next day, he was handed a cup of hemlock, he drank, and he died.
Why?
Very simply, Socates believed that it would be antithetical to his teachings, his doctrines, and indeed everything he had stood for during his long life. He had stood for the proposition that the people should rule, that the judgment of his peers ought to be sancrosanct. He had stood for the rule of law, and the rule of reason. If he were to accept an easy way out, and disrespect theverdict of the jury, it would stand forever as a repudiation of his life and work. It would sully his reputation. Though he might live years longer, those years would be purchased at an enormous price, in his eyes.
To us, the in the 21st century of the United States, it may be very difficult to understand how someone could hold his life so cheap that he would willingly end it, whatever the reason. For the Greeks, though, I believe it would be hard for them to understand how we could hold our honor so cheap, that we would willingly barter it away to purchase a few years of life. Especially considering thaty those years woudl be years of living in shame. They would find someone liek Scooter Libby familiar, but reprehensible, They did, after all, have the example of the Persians to contemplate.
If Socrates were here today, and if he were found guilty of obstruction of justice, and threatened with jail for that crime, and if he were offered a way out... he would not accept it. He would not take the easy way out. He would accept the punishment that had been duly meted out to him. We know this, because the real Socrates accepted a far more severe penalty, for a crime he did not commit, without complaint.
You will never see anyone from this Administration with anywhere near the integrity of Socrates, anyone who deserves anything like the honor that he is accorded. No one who respects the rule of law anywhere nearly as much.
Instead, the Administration is filled with Scooter Libby types, who want special, privileged treatment, who believe they are better than the common folk, who would not hesitate one second before acdepting the easy way out. They have no respect for the rule of law. None of them.
Socrates, is, in my view, a lot like Jesus. He died because he wanted to preserve his legacy, and we are the beneficiaries of that legacy, which is, ultimately, the enlightened, secular, rational society we live in. He is the secular Jesus, who died to save us from superstition and unreason. (No disrespect to the Jesus of Christianity, who died for other reasons, and who would probably have gotten along very well with Socrates ... but not so well with the so-called Christians of today, who dishonor his name every time they use it to justify prejudice, hat, war, killing, and the like.)
Scooter Libby, on the other hand, like the rest of his cohort, is an anti-Socrates, and an anti-Jesus. (Jesus, too, accepted the punishment that was meted out to hm, without complaint, even though he was not guilty of any crime.) He is just another weak, corrupt, elitist who has no loyalty to America, to justice, to virtue, to the rule of law, or, ultimately, to anything other than himself.
His name will live forever in infamy.
Benedict Arnold
John Wilkes Booth
Lee Harvey Oswald
James Earl Ray
Spiro Agnew
Richard Nixon
Cap Weinberger
Scooter Libby
Villains one and all.