The fellow who
replaced Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), the House Majority Leader (Second
in the House after the Speaker) has an, uh, interesting view of
education and spending. "My hero Socrates trained in Plato on a
rock. How much did that cost? So the greatest minds in history became
the greatest minds in history without spending a lot of money."
He has a lot
of other strange views. Personally, I read I.F. Stone's “The
Trial of Socrates” and was left considerably less than
impressed with Socrates. I think he was far too abstract a thinker
and could have been more down-to-earth and immediately practical. I
had read Plato's “The
Republic” in Junior High (Called Middle School these days) and
recall having been pretty unimpressed by that as well. So no, I don't
agree with Rep. David Brat as neither Plato nor Socrates count as “my
hero.”
