Plato and the decay of democracy

Just for a little more on Plato and democracy, try the link above just to get a glimpse of how 'human rights' are now spreading to other species.  Peter Singer is the man who was a major inspiration, if not the founder, of the animal rights movement back in the 70's.  He doesn't believe in harming animals, but abortion is ok.  In fact, infanticide up to a certain age (and his age limit appears to change) is ok with him as well.  The big problem with Singer is he is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Princeton, and he is a media darling.  They love to spread whatever he says.  His books are interesting for the fact that it shows that if you don't begin with the right premises, you will get the wrong conclusions.  His logic is actually quite valid, he just starts with the wrong premises.  He does state somewhere that (paraphrased) the only way to hold to the sanctity of human life is if we indeed are created in the image of God.  But one of his premises is that we are not created in the image of God.

Maybe I digress too far from Plato, but I think this is a worthwhile rabbit trail, and not unrelated.  The decay of democracy on a world wide level started shortly after the American Revolution.  It can be seen in the contrast between the US and French Revolutions.  Have you ever noticed that the founding fathers didn't speak of 'human rights'?   'Rights' are discussed for sure.  But the Declaration of Independence says that we are 'endowed by our creator' with these rights.  The French Revolution was a much different thing.  In France it was largely an atheistic, humanistic revolt.  They had nothing to ground their belief in rights on, so they came up with an arbitrary criteria and just said, ok, if you are human you should have rights.  But if that's just an arbitrary criteria, why can't it be changed to someone else's criteria?  To PETA, any sentient organism has rights.  Over time 'rights' and 'human rights' have become synonymous.  But I think there is an important distinction there.  

Another reason this makes a difference is looking at things like 'gay rights'.  To gays, they should have rights.  They speak easily of 'human rights'.  It doesn't seem to occur to them at all that to exercise their 'rights' they infringe upon others rights.  This is all too obvious recently in the way gays expect to be able to overturn a fair election if they don't get their way.   But if 'rights' are not based on any solid ground (ie being endowed with them by God) the assertion of rights is just an exercise in political power.  There is no right or wrong, only power.  Thus, an election means nothing.  

You have probably noticed that I'm using the term 'democracy' loosely.  Technically we live in a representative republic, but I think the argument stays the same.