1. I've somewhat come to terms with Plato. I think a modern reader must accept that there are a multitude of definitions of "democracy". To Plato, democracy primarily meant election by sortition- no different than drawing names of your representatives out of a hat. Do you want to be represented in government by your neighbor?
It's likely you don't want that, because your neighbors aren't necessarily experts at the art of governance. Most modern democracies are what Aristotle called a polity, which rests between an oligarchy and a democracy.
The downside of pure democracy is covered in Crito:
Cr. But do you see. Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, as is evident in your own case, because they can do the very greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion?
Soc. I only wish, Crito, that they could; for then they could also do the greatest good, and that would be well. But the truth is, that they can do neither good nor evil: they cannot make a man wise or make him foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
The founding fathers of the United States were intimately familiar with Plato and, thus, knew to temper the negative aspects of the masses by election of the best.
2. The dialogue actually fits in nicely with the Snowden drama that's been going on. The main thrust of Socrates' argument is that, when you live in a state and you are free to leave at any time, you accept that rules that exist. Thus, when you break the law, it's unjust to leave that state, because you accepted the terms when you remained in the country as a citizen. It's a version of the social contract. I think the weakness here is in the assumption about the freedom to leave at any time. David Hume says in one of his works that when you don't have the resources to leave the country, then you're effectively a prisoner of the government's whims. The implied consent disappears.
“Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he leaves her.” -David Hume, Of the Original Contract
That's not to say that we can just go out and kill people because we don't have to accept law. Rejecting the consent theory of the social contract doesn't necessarily mean we reject the basis of law itself. Hume and others suggest, for instance, that order and maintaining a civil society are reason enough to follow law.
Anyway...
1. I've somewhat come to terms with Plato. I think a modern reader must accept that there are a multitude of definitions of "democracy". To Plato, democracy primarily meant election by sortition- no different than drawing names of your representatives out of a hat. Do you want to be represented in government by your neighbor?
It's likely you don't want that, because your neighbors aren't necessarily experts at the art of governance. Most modern democracies are what Aristotle called a polity, which rests between an oligarchy and a democracy.
The downside of pure democracy is covered in Crito:
Cr. But do you see. Socrates, that the opinion of the many must be regarded, as is evident in your own case, because they can do the very greatest evil to anyone who has lost their good opinion?
Soc. I only wish, Crito, that they could; for then they could also do the greatest good, and that would be well. But the truth is, that they can do neither good nor evil: they cannot make a man wise or make him foolish; and whatever they do is the result of chance.
The founding fathers of the United States were intimately familiar with Plato and, thus, knew to temper the negative aspects of the masses by election of the best.
2. The dialogue actually fits in nicely with the Snowden drama that's been going on. The main thrust of Socrates' argument is that, when you live in a state and you are free to leave at any time, you accept that rules that exist. Thus, when you break the law, it's unjust to leave that state, because you accepted the terms when you remained in the country as a citizen. It's a version of the social contract. I think the weakness here is in the assumption about the freedom to leave at any time. David Hume says in one of his works that when you don't have the resources to leave the country, then you're effectively a prisoner of the government's whims. The implied consent disappears.
“Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he leaves her.” -David Hume, Of the Original Contract
That's not to say that we can just go out and kill people because we don't have to accept law. Rejecting the consent theory of the social contract doesn't necessarily mean we reject the basis of law itself. Hume and others suggest, for instance, that order and maintaining a civil society are reason enough to follow law.