Moreover, you get no points by suggesting Strauss did not invent the notion of the noble lie, as he certainly did not reject it. In fact, the noble lie appears to be central to modern neocon thought, which can indeed be traced to Strauss, whether he invented it or just propounded its merits to his disciples.

By that method, we can conclude that Greenspan did not really print money with abandon because he wrote in the 1960's about the import of a gold standard OR that George W. Bush did not engage in nation-building because he campaigned on the opposite platform.

Clearly, all you have done is illustrate that "On Tyranny" by Strauss is perhaps not the source of all neocon philosophy. So big deal. That argument, much like the Strauss' arguments in the book, misses most of what is crucial. [cont]

"The expereince of the present generation has taught us to read the great political literature of the past with different eyes and with different expectations. The lesson may not be without value for our political orientation. We are now brought face to face with a tyranny which holds out the threat of becoming, thanks to the "conquest of nature" and in particular of human nature, what no earlier tyranny ever became: perpetual and universal. Confronted by the appalling alternative that man, or human thought must be collectivized either at one stroke and without mercy or else by slow and gentle processes, we are forced to wonder how we could escape from this dilemna. We reconsider the elementary and unobtrusive conditions of human freedom.

The historical form in which this reflection is here presented is perhaps not inappropriate. The manifest and deliberate collectivization or coordination of thought is being prepared in a hidden and frequently quite unconcious way by the spread of the teaching that all human thought is collective independently of any human effort directed to this end, because all human thought is historical. There seems to be no more appropriate way of combatting this teaching than the study of history."

"Society will always try to tyranize thought."

Who wrote these words?

A Ron Paul

B. Ludwig von Mises

C Ayn Rand

D Murray Rothbard

E Lysander Spooner

F John Rawls

G Richard Rorty

H Leo Strauss

A, B, C, D, E, F, G: Wrong, idiots.

It was H, the Father of the neocons, according to Dr Professor Ron Paul, who apparently knows nothing of Leo Starsuss except except whatever he reads from second or third-hand sources, The above is from Starsuss' On Tyranny. And as for the book mentioned by Paul, Strauss Thoughts on Machiavelli, Strauss begins with the observation that Machiavelli was a teacher of evil–a complex teacher of evil who obscured things, misrepresented things and uttered blasphemies.

Anyone hwo has actually READ Thoughts on Machiavelli will know this.

As to Starss teaching a political dogma or theory, we have the Marxist Alexander Kojeve's rebuttal to this, the same Kojeve who debated Strauss over the issue of tyranny, again from On Tyranny (which includes the Strauss-Kojeve debate) "…Strauss tells us not *what* to think about all this, but what to think *about* when speaking of the relations between tyranny or government in general on the one hand and wisdom or philosophy on the other. In other words, he leaves it at raising problems; but he raises them with a view to solving them." (Kojeve)

Because Kristol, Perle, and the rest of the neocons solved these problems their way doesn't mean that Strauss endorsed their solutions–how could he, he's been dead since 1973. Since Paul has compared Strauss and his disciples as a kind of Christ or anti-Christ and His disciples, we should be aware that Christ, while He was alive, had to correct his disciples many times–and after He left, the disciples of his disciples went on their merry ways doing things their way–hardly Christ's way–the same can be said for Strauss's followers.

But some of you needed a source of the neocons thinking, and took their assertions at face value–like all too many neos of the past, those neoPlatonists, Stoics (followers of, supposedly, Aristotle), Thomists (followers of Thomas Aquinas), Machiavellians (of which Strauss criticised as hardly Machiavellian at all) and so-called Rousseauians like Hegel or Marx. Yes, Kristol and co did take classes from Strauss–like so what? I know of many who did and became certainly not neocons.

One last note: The noble lie thing. This is no invention of Strauss'. This noble lie thing is in Plato, Machiavelli and Rousseau, to name a few–Machiavelli states that all political communities, or states, are founded upon force and fraud–the fraud being that noble lie–Plato's best regime is founded upon that same lie, the one that Socrates is forced to apologise for, that lie that people think they are knowledgeable in what they do, and as Socrates exposed that lie through questioning, he gained the emnity of Athens–showing that this lie should not be exposed as the weight of the state will fall on the questioner. Indeed, Strauss's Persecution and the Art of Writing shows that those who did expose that lie had to either obscure that discovery of that lie in their writings or have their writings published after they had died–

But, as I have stated before, all of this about Strauss is known, if one bothers to actually read his stuff and not some libertarian book review or the Cliff Notes or the Ron Paul lecture.

And, by the way, if Paul had done this calumny to Rorty or Rawls, I'd have the quotes and the references to push Dr Paul off his pedestal on these issues also–

Dr Paul was either badly served by those who advised him about Strauss or he didn't care or didn't know–hey, that was what Socrates found when he questioned the Athenian politicians, who either didn't know, didn't care or were badly advised.