(Horrific) Quote of the Day: The collectivist evil that lives on [update 3]

I’ve been saying all along that all this anti-smacking spin and nonsense is not primarily about child discipline.  It has come about because Sue Bradford and her fellow travellers wanted to use those who cannot tell the difference between a smack and assault to advance the state's control over families.  I’ve been suggesting you should never forget that Sue is still at root a Marxist -- and Marx called explicitly for the nationalisation of children and the abolition of the family.  And along these lines, I’ve reminded you of her support for Cindy Kiro’s surveillance state – her wet dream of for clipboard-wielding Stasis examining every family in the country, an apparatchik in every home.

That is the ultimate goal of the collectivist, as Plato described for them over two-thousand years ago in The Republic  The Laws [see excerpt here at Google Books].  If you want to see horrific, then this is it:

“The greatest principle of all is that nobody, whether male or female, should be without a leader. Nor should the mind of anybody be habituated to letting him do anything at all on his own initiative; neither out of zeal, nor even playfully. But in war and in the midst of peace -- to his leader he shall direct his eye and follow him faithfully. And even in the smallest matter he should stand under leadership. For example, he should get up, or move, or wash, or take his meals... only if he has been told to do so. In a word, he should teach his soul, by long habit, never to dream of acting independently, and to become utterly incapable of it."  [Hat tip Samizdata]

Feel free to express your revulsion, in any terms you care to use.

UPDATE 1:  Cometh the hour, cometh John Boscawen’s Private Member’s Bill.

UPDATE 2: Cometh the hour-and-a-half and we’ve got Sue Bradford calling Boscawen’s bill to denationalise children “a return to the Dark Ages,” and John Key continuing with his “it’s-working-fine-already” blind denial.

At least it was fun watching Adolf at No Minister wriggling while he waited to be sure what he was supposed to think.

UPDATE 3: SteveW points out that the first line of this quotation has been dropped, suggesting this changes the meaning  -- the first line being. "Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are required; the greatest principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander..."  Now note first of all that to make more readable translations some translators change clauses into sentences, which is what’s probably happened in Samizdata’s translation (which I understand comes from Karl Popper’s book, so it’s him you’d be accusing of selective quotation.)

And note also that the context given here is both “ in war and in the midst of peace,” a context Plato reinforces for the reader by going on to emphasise that “we ought in time of peace from youth onwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded… I should add that all dances ought to be performed with view to military excellence…”  In other words, according to Plato, society should be conducted like a military garrison.  And that idea is really the quote’s full context.