The Middle Class and freedom: foundations of Western Civilization

For those that look to the right, for arguments sake I list the book I am reading right now, and the tragically small number that I have read this CY. Right now I am reading Ripples of Battle by the irreplaceable Victor Davis Hanson.

Being a Classics specialist that he is, he mentions in his discussion of the Battle of Delium in 424 B.C (not B.C.E. you Orwellian PC types), somethings from a work almost 2,400 years old that apply today as much as they did at the foundation of the World's most successful and free culture, Western Civilization.

The quotes are from Euripide's play, The Supplicants,

”There are.” Theseus proclaims, “three classes of citizens. The rich are of no use and always lusting after more gain; the poor who lack a livelihood are dangerous folk, who invest too much in envy, trying to goad the rich, as they are hoodwinked by the tongues of wicked leaders. But of these three classes those in the middle save states, since they preserve the order which the city has established.”

“Freedom is simply this: Who has a good proposal and wishes to bring it before the citizenry? He who does so, enjoys repute, while he who does not merely keeps silent. What can be more just for a city than this?”

Our founders knew the classics like your kids know Spongebob. What are our universities teaching?