Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Now, what does the craft we call justice give, and to whom or what does it give it?

If we are to follow the previous answers, Socrates, it gives benefits to friends and does harm to enemies.

Simonides means, then, that to treat friends well and enemies badly is justice?

I believe so.

And who is most capable of treating friends well and enemies badly in matters of disease and health?

A doctor.

And who can do so best in a storm at sea?

A ship’s captain.

What about the just person? In what actions and what work is he most capable of benefiting friends and harming enemies?

In wars and alliances, I suppose.

All right. Now, when people aren’t sick, Polemarchus, a doctor is useless to them?

True.

And so is a ship’s captain to those who aren’t sailing?

Yes.

And to people who aren’t at war, a just man is useless?

No, I don’t think that at all.

Justice is also useful in peacetime, then?

It is.

And so is farming, isn’t it?

Yes.

For getting produce?

Yes.

And shoemaking as well?

Yes.

For getting shoes, I think you’d say?

Certainly.

Well, then, what is justice useful for getting and using in peacetime?

Contracts, Socrates.

And by contracts do you mean partnerships, or what?

I mean partnerships.

Is someone a good and useful partner in a game of checkers because he’s just or because he’s a checkers player?

Because he’s a checkers player.

And in laying bricks and stones, is a just person a better and more useful partner than a builder?

Not at all.

In what kind of partnership, then, is a just person a better partner than a builder or a lyre-player, in the way that a lyre-player is better than a just person at hitting the right notes?

In money matters, I think.

Except perhaps, Polemarchus, in using money, for whenever one needs to buy a horse jointly, I think a horse breeder is a more useful partner, isn’t he?

Apparently.

And when one needs to buy a boat, it’s a boatbuilder or a ship’s captain?

Probably.

In what joint use of silver or gold, then, is a just person a more useful partner than the others?

When it must be deposited for safekeeping, Socrates.

You mean whenever there is no need to use them but only to keep them?

That’s right.

Then it is when money isn’t being used that justice is useful for it?

I’m afraid so.

And whenever one needs to keep a pruning knife safe, but not to use it, justice is useful both in partnerships and for the individual. When you need to use it, however, it is skill at vine pruning that’s useful?

Apparently.

You’ll agree, then, that when one needs to keep a shield or a lyre safe and not to use them, justice is a useful thing, but when you need to use them, it is soldiery or musicianship that’s useful?

Necessarily.

And so, too, with everything else, justice is useless when they are in use but useful when they aren’t?
It looks that way.

In that case, justice isn’t worth much, since it is only useful for useless things. But let’s look into the following point. Isn’t the person most able to land a blow, whether in boxing or any other kind of fight, also most able to guard against it?

Certainly.

And the one who is most able to guard against disease is also most able to produce it unnoticed?

So it seems to me, anyway.

And the one who is the best guardian of an army is the very one who can steal the enemy’s plans and dispositions?

Certainly.

Whenever someone is a clever guardian, then, he is also a clever thief.

Probably so.

If a just person is clever at guarding money, therefore, he must also be clever at stealing it.

According to our argument, at any rate.

A just person has turned out then, it seems, to be a kind of thief. Maybe you learned this from Homer, for he’s fond of Autolycus, the maternal grandfather of Odysseus, whom he describes as better than everyone at lying and stealing.

According to you, Homer, and Simonides, then, justice seems to be some sort of craft of stealing, one that benefits friends and harms enemies. Isn’t that what you meant?

No, by god, it isn’t. I don’t know any more what I did mean, but I still believe that to benefit one’s friends and harm one’s enemies is justice.

Speaking of friends, do you mean those a person believes to be good and useful to him or those who actually are good and useful, even if he doesn’t think they are, and similarly with enemies?

Probably, one loves those one considers good and useful and hates those one considers bad and harmful.

But surely people often make mistakes about this, believing many people to be good and useful when they aren’t, and making the opposite mistake about enemies?

They do indeed.

And then good people are their enemies and bad ones their friends?

That’s right.

And so it’s just to benefit bad people and harm good ones?

Apparently.

But good people are just and able to do no wrong?

True.

Then, according to your account, it’s just to do bad things to those who do no injustice.

No, that’s not just at all, Socrates; my account must be a bad one.

It’s just, then, is it, to harm unjust people and benefit just ones?

That’s obviously a more attractive view than the other one, anyway.

Then, it follows, Polemarchus, that it is just for the many, who are mistaken in their judgment, to harm their friends, who are bad, and benefit their enemies, who are good. And so we arrive at a conclusion opposite to what we said Simonides meant.

That certainly follows. But let’s change our definition, for it seems that we didn’t define friends and enemies correctly.

How did we define them, Polemarchus?

We said that a friend is someone who is believed to be useful.

And how are we to change that now?

Someone who is both believed to be useful and is useful is a friend; someone who is believed to be useful but isn’t, is believed to be a friend but isn’t. And the same for the enemy.

According to this account, then, a good person will be a friend and a bad one an enemy.

Yes.

So you want us to add something to what we said before about justice, when we said that it is just to treat friends well and enemies badly. You want us to add to this that it is just to treat well a friend who is good and to harm an enemy who is bad?

Right. That seems fine to me.

Is it, then, the role of a just man to harm anyone?

Certainly, he must harm those who are both bad and enemies.

Do horses become better or worse when they are harmed?

Worse.

With respect to the virtue that makes dogs good or the one that makes horses good?

The one that makes horses good.

And when dogs are harmed, they become worse in the virtue that makes dogs good, not horses?

Necessarily.

Then won’t we say the same about human beings, too, that when they are harmed they become worse in human virtue?

Indeed.

But isn’t justice human virtue?

Yes, certainly.

Then people who are harmed must become more unjust?

So it seems.

Can musicians make people unmusical through music?

They cannot.

Or horsemen make people unhorsemanlike through horsemanship?

No.

Well, then, can those who are just make people unjust through justice? In a word, can those who are good make people bad through virtue?

They cannot.

It isn’t the function of heat to cool things but of its opposite?

Yes.

Nor the function of dryness to make things wet but of its opposite?

Indeed.

Nor the function of goodness to harm but of its opposite?

Apparently.

And a just person is good?

Indeed.

Then, Polemarchus, it isn’t the function of a just person to harm a friend or anyone else, rather it is the function of his opposite, an unjust person?

In my view that’s completely true, Socrates.

If anyone tells us, then, that it is just to give to each what he’s owed and understands by this that a just man should harm his enemies and benefit his friends, he isn’t wise to say it, since what he says isn’t true, for it has become clear to us that it is never just to harm anyone?

I agree.

You and I shall fight as partners, then, against anyone who tells us that Simonides, Bias, Pittacus, or any of our other wise and blessedly happy men said this.

I, at any rate, am willing to be your partner in the battle.

An assertion: “But when faced by the enemy we need anger.” Nowhere do we need it less: that’s when our aggressive actions must be controlled and obedient to commands, not given free play. For example: what does in the barbarians, who are physically so much sturdier and inured to toil, except anger, which is its own worst enemy? Gladiators too—their skill protects them, anger leaves them exposed. Furthermore, what need is there of anger, when reason gains the same end? Do you suppose that a hunter feels anger toward wild beasts? Yet he both faces them as they approach and pursues them as they flee, and reason accomplishes all of this, without anger. When so many thousands of Cimbri and Teutoni poured over the Alps, what destroyed them—so utterly that their people back home learned the news only by rumor, since not even a messenger escaped—what destroyed them if not the fact they had anger instead of virtue? And just as anger sometimes has been known to provide momentum and lay low the things in its path, so it has more often been self-destructive. Is there anything more spirited than the Germans? Anything keener on the attack? Anything more eager for the arms of war that they know from birth, that nurture and sustain them, that they have as their sole passion, turning their backs on all else? Anything tougher when it comes to enduring harsh conditions, thanks to the fact that they mostly leave their bodies uncovered and take no shelter from their unendingly freezing climate? Yet Spaniards and Gauls and men of Asia and Syria (virtually women when it comes to war) cut them down, before one of our legions is even in sight, when their inclination to anger—and nothing else—makes them easy prey. Imagine adding reason and discipline to those bodies and minds that have not known pampering, luxury, wealth: to say the least, we will certainly have to revive our old Roman ways! How else did Fabius restore our dominion’s shaken forces than by knowing how to take his time and drag things out and delay, all things that angry people don’t know how to do? Our dominion would have been lost had Fabius dared to do all that anger urged: he took thought for our common fortunes and—having judged our strength to be such that any loss meant total loss—he set aside his sense of grievance and desire for revenge and focused solely on expedient opportunities. He vanquished his anger before he vanquished Hannibal. What about Scipio? Didn’t he leave behind Hannibal, the Carthaginian army, all the things that should have roused his anger, and carry the war into Africa, taking his time in a way that made his enemies think it evidence of self-indulgent sloth? What about the second Scipio? Didn’t he keep Numantia under siege a very long time, regarding with equanimity this spur to resentment—his own and the commonwealth’s at once—that Numantia was taking longer to vanquish than Carthage had? While shutting the enemy in with his siege works he drove them to fall on their own swords. So you can see that anger is not expedient even in battles and wars: it’s given to rashness, and its desire to bring others into peril makes it careless of its own. The virtue that’s most reliable has looked guardedly about a good long time, has exercised self-control, and has advanced slowly toward a determinate goal.

Parasocial/parapolitical gooning is infinitely easier and more immediately satisfying than fighting the war where it actually makes a difference—within one's own soul. The Enemy marks his victories by the conquest of each individual person. When he sees you cheering on the coming "golden age" just because a charismatic minstrel whom you have no affiliation with was allowed to win a "victory," all he does is draw satisfaction from your callowness. He even goes out of his way to make the entire process excessively and glaringly theatrical to make it that much more funny for him when you rabidly believe and indulge in it.

Aside from the fact that it’s 2024 and “endorsing” a candidate is inherently ridiculous, I have a reason for not endorsing Trump. It took me a long time to understand my deepest reason, but someone helped me out by giving a silly title to a talk of mine.

See, most people who are against Trump think he doesn’t deserve to be President—that America is too good for him. I’m totally in the opposite camp. It feels wrong for Trump to be President, not because America is too good for him, but because he is too good for us. We should not have elected Trump, because we are not ready to serve him.

How many Trump voters would vote to give their President unconditional control of the government? It can’t be 100%. Is it even 50%? Maybe it’s 50%. That’s 50% of 51%, which is not, in case math is hard for you, a majority.

It’s certainly not a mandate. It’s certainly not a mandate to end the “rule of law” (i.e., the unconstitutional capture of the executive branch by the legislative branch). So how can a Trump administration be anything but the usual bipartisan centaur?

Americans do not deserve Trump because they do not care enough about reality to see the structural differences between what they are actually doing, and what they think they were doing. Americans do not deserve Trump because they expect too little of him. They are fine with the exciting story. They don’t even know what a Plum Book is. Then, like children, they will be disappointed with the results, and never know why.

TLDR: Trump and Vance are not strong enough to replace Washington or even control it. They can do what any Republican adminstration does: bring in a different faction of staffers. This will change a few things that the government does in some ways. It will not involve any serious changes to the way government works or we live our lives.

Their lack of strength is not their fault. As democratic leaders, they have only the strength that the voters give them. The voters are not ready to trust them with full power over the government, which is the only way they could get anything done. They are not strong enough because we did not give them enough strength.

Worse, by refusing to see the difference between the dramatic narrative and the sordid reality, by investing emotional energy in the drama without any equivalent energy in wanting to make it real, or any anger that it is not real… you give your leaders no choice.

They would love to lead you for real. First, you would have to follow them for real—and you’re not ready to do that. So…