Thanks. I can only write a few articles on Medium. The time resources are not there for me to make daily rants--and I like to be at least 90% finished before I post. Trying to get 100% when an article might get 30 reads is not worth the extra effort.

I know Socrates & Plato only superficially. Lately I've been a bit confused as I've encountered contrarian perspectives on Medium.

Rome was indeed terribly corrupt. There was very little kindness or compassion in that society. Everybody used everybody else for personal advantage. The salvation of Jesus was getting people out of that self-destructive mindset, not a ticket to heaven.

I was puzzled at why Fukuyama could not recommend proportional representation as a system for USA to seriously consider. But, then again, I find political scientists are really not all that imaginative. They just like analyzing current systems and explaining why they work the way they do.

If he has some kind of ax to grind, I cannot see it with these two books. I have not read his other stuff.