Plato would be hated on the election boards, as his longwinded posts, featuring dialogues between semi-fictional characters, would constantly dismiss the importance of electoral politics and try to steer the conversation toward justice.
GLAUCON: Isn't it good luck that we've run into you, Socrates, on our way to the Agora. We're in the middle of a seeming intractable dispute that you can help us with.
SOCRATES: What is your dispute about?
GLAUCON: It's about who will carry North Carolina in the 2012 American presidential election.
TENDERBRANSON: I say Barack Obama will probably win. The newest poll has him leading by 3 points.
UMENGUS: Everyone knows that's just junk. That poll has a sample 7 points more Democratic than the electorate of North Carolina in 2010.
TORIES: I wouldn't put it so strongly as Umengus, but another poll from Rasmussen does have Mitt Romney leading by 2 points. We just can't be sure at this point.
SOCRATES: So one poll says that Obama is leading, and another says that Romney is leading?
GLAUCON: That's right.
SOCRATES: Now, can it be that in the real election, both candidates are the winner?
GLAUCON: No, that couldn't be.
SOCRATES: So it must be that the polls do not capture the form of the election in its true nature, but only a changeable appearance of it?
GLAUCON: That must be right.
TENDERBRANSON: Your logic is clear, Socrates.
TORIES: That's how it is.
SOCRATES: So perhaps another approach would be better. Now, would we not say that if a man is to be a lover of wisdom and have harmony in his soul, the rational and philosophical part of his soul should be in command?
GLAUCON: Clearly.
SOCRATES: So should we not look to North Carolina's most rational and philosophical citizens?
TORIES: Well, North Carolina has a lot of high-income seculars, working as computer programmers in Raleigh or bankers in Charlotte, and these I think will trend hard to Romney. This is why I think Romney will carry North Carolina.
SOCRATES: Who are these "high-income seculars" of which you speak, Tories?
TORIES: They are people like me, who've made lots of money filing suit in the court of Argon and trading with the Persians, and who don't believe that there are any gods.
GLAUCON: Wait, what? Surely we all believe in the gods atop Mount Olympus.
TORIES: No, not me.
JMFCSTES: There is only one God. Currently He is only worshiped by the Jews, but four hundred years from now he will send his only son to redeem us all. For it will be written, in a few centuries: "yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
BRTDES: No way I'd believe that. Maybe after a couple of thousand years their services will get more interesting, but for the first nineteen centuries or so it will be just a bunch of old men talking. Why would I go for that when I could go see the hot new Oracle of Delphi predict the future while waving her hands in the air?
NATHANES: I too believe that there is just one God, but the truly sophisticated position is to realize that the importance about religion lies not in the so-called objective truth-value of whatever metaphysical theses about the external world it might be interpreted as making, but rather in its providing structure and guidance to a personal spirituality that I recognize also is present with many adherents of Olympian polytheism.
GLAUCON: Now I'm totally lost.
SOCRATES: As am I. But luckily we don't need to settle these issues about Gods, as I see another problem with these "high-income seculars". Did you not say, Tories, that they were merchants, who had obtained a lot of money?
TORIES: I did.
SOCRATES: Now, would we say of a man who was ruled by the love of money that he was wise, or that he did not recognize what was truly valuable in life?
TORIES: The latter.
SOCRATES: So we should look instead to the philosophers. How do the philosophers of North Carolina vote?
TENDERBRANSON: I'm not really sure, but I think they live in a town called Chapel Hill, where they support Obama.
MEMPHES: Wait, what? In America philosophers live outside the big city? Crazy! They must be a lot smarter than our philosophers. All our philosophers want to live right in central Athens, even though a stone hut will cost you ten drachmas a month, just because they think it's the "cradle of Western civilization" or some crap like that.
SOCRATES: So the philosophers support one candidate, and the merchants another?
TENDERBRANSON: Yes.
SOCRATES: And didn't North Carolina vote for one party the previous time in 2008 but the other party in 2004?
TENDERBRANSON: Yes.
SOCRATES: Truly a state with a disordered soul. And is not Mitt Romney likewise the candidate with the most disordered soul, given that he claims to oppose all the more liberal things he said he supported as governor of Massachusetts.
TENDERBRANSON: Yes indeed, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And does it not follow that a state with a disordered soul will vote for a candidate with a disordered soul, so Mitt Romney will carry North Carolina?
GLAUCON: Your logic is clear, Socrates. Thank you so much for settling our dispute.
Poll
