That’s an important point. So is my point: slaves were not excused from fighting. They were prevented from acting for their common defence and general welfare; the rights and duties of a citizen. Slaves were enslaved.

But your point is important. I doubt either of us would have minded seeing Hillary Clinton go to Benghazi and dismiss her security. Or going to Benghazi with enough troops to establish order, but still sharing the risks of her troops.

You forgot to mention castration — balls alone, balls & penis, penis alone, which was the most degrading but not actually castration. This is why the ancients so often charged into battle chanting, “Death before Dishonor.”

I was merely pointing out that the decision for war in Athens was being made by the core group that would have to fight in it, in the context of a discussion on whether or not “democratic” governments are or are not likely to choose war. Nothing more.

In Athens, the democratic system they claimed to have often chose war, and in a discussion of this topic it is relevant that:

1) an assembly that was representative of the people who claimed to be citizens often voted for war; it almost doesn’t matter how narrow the franchise was, insofar as it was at least much, much larger that any viable definition of an oligarchy. More than the membership of Congress or any parliament, or the senior leadership of any executive branch in any modern state. Do 30,000 men have a vote for war in America today? Or even 1,500?

2) the men voting, save the oldest, would be called on to shoulder arms they had paid for themselves in the phalanx and do the work. Also unlike modern society.

All that to say that, however undemocratic the state might have been by modern standards [narrower franchise contrasted with more direct engagement in decision-making by those who held the franchise, Athens took decisions for war by vote among far more voters than is now the case. Put it this way- the society may have been undemocratic, but the decision to choose war was much more democratic than today.

Slaves didn’t normally have to fight.

“Slaves were normally disarmed, tortured, and generally enslaved” does not equal “Slaves didn’t normally have to fight.” Henry James left America to dodge the Civil War draft so he didn’t have to fight. Didn’t make him a slave.

1. Whistling in the dark or wishful thinking.

2. America and NATO were involved in things like bombing Serbia, and we wanted to seize the moral high ground and provide a reason that Milosevic should be replaced.

3. Intuitive grappling toward the Kantian or Hegelian Permanent Peace that perhaps we can reach just as soon as every country is a democracy.

4. Following from Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society, there is a lot of intellectual brainpower out there just waiting to pounce on any broad argument and support one side — never mind the “mundane specifics.” Knowledge of Rome and Athens takes some time to learn–but many intellectuals like to argue on general principles, especially if they think they are arguing for the correct and progressive side — the side that will make the world a better place.

5. The Peace Dividend sounds like a great thing to emerge from the end of the Cold War — it’s easier to argue for it if you think that democracies will never fight each other.

6. Support for the proposition can be drafted on an afternoon deadline — and op ed columns must be written on something. I recall Tom Friedman arguing that countries that both had McDonald’s franchises rarely if ever fought each other.