Quotes from the book The DNA of Democracy, Richard C. Lyons, June 11, 2019
...democracy itself need not end with enormous explosions; it may be smothered in gathering silences. Democcracy need not be killed in overt acts of war; it may perish through what appears to be kindness. Democracy need not fall visibly, noisily and dramatically; it may crumble, by imperceptible degrees befoe disappearig. Democracy eed not be crushed by foreign foes; it may collapse under many slight asssaults, given and received by its own citizens, whose acts serve and end of societal implosion.
On kinds of government:
The kinds of government, whether tyrannical or democratic, have key, core characteristics that serve as and ideational code, much like biological DNA. This code determines the structural characteristics and resultant behavior of a government. DNA is the essential information code out of which the distinct circumstancrs of the flesh of governance gathers.
In the beginning:
The history of democracy...begins with early 'laor pains' that intensify with opposition to tyranny.
Simple tyranny:
...exemplified by the Egypt of the all-powerful Pharaoh. It is the simple tyranny: rule by the one, through the few, to enslave the multitudes.
In the first chapters, Lyons makes the distinction between the Pharaohic inhumane human-god tyrannical government and the Israelite's divine God coupled with the rule of law, God's law. However,
During the period of the Kings, Israel again faced the critical question of idolatry when their own kings demanded to be considered “God’s Anointed” in the person of a human king—to be regarded in a position of omnipotence, above the temple as well as the people. Israel was soon divided by the question. In the weakness of this division, the people were again conquered and made captive… this time to Babylon, where in exile Israel’s law was further strengthened, until the people realized God was not confined to an area or to a city;,,,,
Types of governments in early Greece:
There were notable tyrannies in Samos, Corinth and Thessaly; monarchies in Sparta and Epirus; oligarchies in Megara and Thebes, democracies in Argos and Rhodes. But the foremost city-state remembered and revered today, the one where democracy was wrought and the one from which our democratic DNA derives, was that of Athens, whose democracy—as has so commonly occurred—was birthed out of tyranny.
Athens:
After a fierce battle, Isagoras and the Spartans, who had never known surrender until that moment, were removed from the Acropolis and the people of Athens assumed its government. Cleisthenes was chosen to write a new constitution for the city-state. And, for the first time in Western civilization’s recorded history, in place of one person controlling the multitudes through a few ministers, the power of government was constitutionally placed with the people. The free, citizen, male population, that is: many centuries would pass before women and slaves were recognized as citizens. No longer would one person control all the gifts of the gods, all the lands and commerce of the state, all the public monies and ministries, all the spies and soldiers a tyrant could field. The government would consist of—would be conducted and controlled by—the people.
Darias the Great 's spies akin to today's tech giants:
His rule was reinforced by a system of spies dubbed "the king's ears and eyes."
In 490 BCE, a Persian flotilla of 600 ships and some 125,000 men embarked on an invasion to strangle and crush democracy in its cradle.
When Athens was faced with annihilation and slavery from Darias' son Xeres, Athenian political opponents come together:
Among the returning exiles was Aristides, who had a longtime personal and political feud with his rival, Themistocles. Reflecting the selfless actions of their people, the men swallowed their discontents and met, with Aristides saying: “Themistocles, let us lay aside at this time our vain and childish contentions; let us enter upon a safe and honorable dispute, vying with each other for the preservation of Greece. At other times, but especially now, it is right for us to stand opposed as to which of us will do our city of Athens more good!” Themistocles, who rarely had agreed with Aristides in anything, agreed with him in this, and they united together with their fellow citizens to face the Persians.
Socrates:
Free society allows anyone to follow a philosopher’s first task: the study of the soul without any governmental or societal constraints and in sympathy with the dictates of one’s own individual nature.” Socrates
Honoring the military:
“We inspire wonder now, for we have forced every sea and every land to give access to our daring! Fix your gaze daily on the power that actually belongs to the city and become her erastai [citizen heroes]! And when you realize her greatness, keep in mind that those who acquired this were men of daring, men who knew what was demanded, men who were ashamed to be found wanting in action…They gave their lives in common; and each on his own received in return both a praise that never grows old and the most remarkable of tombs… not that in which they lie buried, but rather that in which their reputation is laid up forever, always to be remembered on every occasion which calls for speech or deed.” Pericles
Rome, from democracy to tyranny (does this sound familiar; United States, November-January 2020, National Guard in the capital, tech giants erasing conservatives, Democrats packing the Supreme Court, corporations terminating conservatives, woke culture canceling everything American):
Tarquinius then unleashed and deftly deployed the usual arts of tyranny upon the people, beginning with spying on the citizenry and purging those senators and their families who favored, or were merely suspected of favoring, the legitimacy of Tullius. He then raised about him the bodyguard his forebear Numa had disbanded generations earlier. He took over the judiciary arm of government and decided to try all capital cases himself, thereby appropriating the power to inflict death, poverty or exile on any citizen, his family or friends, even the very least associate of his opponents.
On the other hand, Biden fully supports his son's anti-American activities:
But his sons bowed their heads. His sons stood silent. The whole of the gathered assembly could view on his face the father’s anguish. But what would the laws be if he, for his own personal reasons, were to subvert them? Brutus condemned his own sons. He turned to the lictors (those who carried out capital sentences) and said, “What remains is your duty.” His sons were scourged and beheaded before his eyes. And it proved that the one who endured the harshest, most unendurable sentence of the law that day was Brutus himself, for not putting his own family above the law. Brutus had to witness his sons’ execution that the law might survive.
After Athens and Rome:
These persons, constitutions and events had to live through memory, for after the fall of the Roman Republic (save for its own descendants, a millennium later, in Italy’s similarly organized city-states) no comparable democracies or republics existed anywhere on Earth for one thousand, eight hundred years.
Work in progress.
